Postive or Neg?

[BenzOnline]

Hey guys....need quick help if possible

Im hooking up a speaker and the wire coming to it is grey but one part is grey with black line in it...the other is solid gray (+,-)

Which one is the positive one?

[Kuan]

Normally positive is the marked one, in this case the one with the stripes. But don't take my word for it and nothing devastating will happen if you wire it wrong. The worst that can happen is that your speakers are 180 degrees out of phase.

You can look at the other speaker and see. That'll tell you!

[BenzOnline]

Thanks Kuan! With the speakers out of phase what exactly does it mean? The cone fires the wrong way? I played with phases once and never could tell a difference.

[Dee8go]

I think as long as they are all hooked up the same way, it doesn't matter. Otherwise, they'll just be out of phase, as you said.

[BenzOnline]

thanks guys!! You the best

[Kuan]

Yeah, one cone fires the wrong way with respect to the other, you figure out which one.

[Zeus]

is this a car speaker or home speaker?

[G-Benz]

Doesn't matter whether car or house speaker, 8 or 4 ohm...whatever...out of phase implies that each channel given identical signals, one speaker will "pull" while the other will "push".

High-frequency signals are too fast to notice any phase difference. You need to feed a reasonably large woofer with a lot of power in order for it to push enough air to notice. The out-of-phase condition translates into a noticeable loss of bass response.

It's even audible with a couple of 6 x 9s...coupled to the trunk with a bit of wattage being fed to them, of course.

[cscmc1]

Easy test -- take a standard 9V battery and attach it to the leads. Note which orientation causes the cone to travel outward, and then see which wire is touching the + battery post. That's your + lead.

[Zeus]

Originally Posted by G-Benz

Doesn't matter whether car or house speaker, 8 or 4 ohm...whatever...out of phase implies that each channel given identical signals, one speaker will "pull" while the other will "push".

Reason why I was asking is that I'm pretty sure that in Mercedes cars, the negative speaker lead is the striped wire, contrary to the convention as Kuan stated (positive striped).

[Whiskeydan]

Originally Posted by cscmc1

Easy test -- take a standard 9V battery and attach it to the leads. Note which orientation causes the cone to travel outward, and then see which wire is touching the + battery post. That's your + lead.

Another easy (audible) way to tell if your speakers are out of phase:

Play a some music with a decent sustained bass line. Turn the balance control to either full left or right. Note the bass. Then center the balance. Note the bass again. If you have less bass with the balance control centered (both spkrs) then the two are "out of phase". If they are in phase then a centered balance control should result in more bass.
This also applies to front and rear speakers.

Also, Just because you have all speakers wired + to + and - to - doesn't mean where you are sitting they will all be "in phase". Sometimes it helps to "flip" the polarity of the rears. Or, a subwoofer for example, if you have a sub running off of its own amp. Some amps "invert" the signal. When its input goes positive, the amps output goes neg. In this case the sub would need to be flipped to optimize the bass.

[BenzOnline]

Its for car speaker in the benz. I put the striped wire to the positive pole of the speakers on both of them. Just wondering if it was correct....

[Kuan]

Yep that's right. A speaker is like a lightbulb. It doesn't care.

[GottaDiesel]

Originally Posted by Kuan

Yep that's right. A speaker is like a lightbulb. It doesn't care.

Huh?

[BenzOnline]

I read on the internet about the speaker wires and the one with the black stripe is actually the negative so I switched it to the proper one. I gained midbass but lost some clarity even though the phases are now dead on.

So really....the out of phase route sounds better in this case. God damn!