Wiring delima

[btrain]

Well Ive done it know. When I was finishing my basement about six months back I was very busy and not putting enough time into thinking through the details of my HT system. To make a long story short, the wire that I concealed for my rear surrounds is not marked for pos/neg ; how can I check this when doing my final hook up to the reciever? Please help, I don’t really know the ramifications of hooking it up backwards and don’t want to find out.

Barry

 

[jaxvon]

Well, the only ramifications of you hooking it up the wrong way would be a 180 degree phase change. Nothing more.

To check it, I suggest you grab a cheap continuity tester with wire leads and a long piece of wire. Doesn't matter if it's thick, thin, whatever. Just wire. Twist one end of the long wire to the positive or negative end in the equipment area (or just deicde what's going to be pos/neg). Then connect the other end of the long wire to one of the wires on the continuity tester. Then touch the other continuity tester lead to one of the wires coming out of the wall. If you get a tone, then you found the wire you were looking for. If you didn't, then it's the other one!

By the way, it always helps to work with the right wire (as in when testing the front left run, actually make sure you're connected to the front left near the equipment). Sounds obvious, but I know that I've done dumber things.

 

[MDS]

Most speaker wires have some kind of mark to distinguish one from the other - it could be a stripe, dots, wording like the gauge or brand name, etc.

If for example, one wire has a stripe on it and you connect that to the positive speaker terminal on the receiver, then you need to connect the other end with a stripe to the positive terminal on the speaker. It doesn't matter which is which, but the convention is to use the marked wire for the positive. It also doesn't matter if you mix and match conventions - you could use the striped wire for positive on the left speaker but use the striped wire for negative on the right speaker. All that matters is that you use the same wire from + of the receiver to the + of the speaker and likewise for the negative for each speaker.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Since you may not know what 180 degrees out of phase means...

1. It won't hurt your speaker at all!

2. When the power expects to be pushing your speaker out, it will actually pull your speaker back and vice versa.

3. No harm at all, and it is fairly easy to check as described above.

 

[MacManNM]

That is right there is no harm. You will get the best sound when all of your speakers have the same polarity. I use a "D cell" battery to check the polarity. Simply touch the speaker leads and watch the woofer. Choose which is positive (woofer out or in) it doesnt matter as long as you do them all the same. Do that to all of the spealers and you have them all in phase.

 

[corey]

Some wire is not marked at all, but does have a ridge on one side that you can feel.