confused on old home stereo setup

[computerdude]

I recently inherited my father's old home stereo components and just want to make sure i have the speakers connected properly. Neither of the speakers are marked left or right, so i have no idea which one is which, or doesn't it really matter? The speakers are marked with the positive and negative connections, and the receiver has red and black wire inputs. I assume red is +, black is -? I've only hooked up one set of speakers before this that had normal speaker wire, so I'm not very good at this. (obviously ) Also, one of the speakers seems to have more bass than the other. Is it possible that both speakers have woofers, and one's blown; or one has a woofer, and the other doesn't?..or that I just don't have the wires hooked up right? lol. I was going to take off the grilles to look, but I think they're glued on.. The model speaker's are Sony SS-440's. My dad got them in college, so they are pretty old. I'll post pictures below. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!


PS- Sorry about the cropped photos; it's hard to attach anything under 100 KB.

 

[TurkishSquirrel]

It shouldn't really matter whether you hook them up as left or right, unless it's one of those little mini-fi systems you buy for your kids. On those it does matter. I had a Sony one that I hooked up wrong once and it didn't work, then I noticed that left was on right and that stuff. For those it shouldn't matter. If the speakers are a pair, then they both should have woofers, one might be blown, if you can see through the grille, or get it off then you can check.

 

[~JC~]

Color and polarity are relative, just make sure you are consistant. Pick a system that works for you and always stick to it. I do red +, black -