So I just picked up a nice pair of JL audio rear speakers for my car, when it occured to me i do not know which speaker wire is the positive and which is negative. Is there any way for me to find out? Do I need a multimeter?
I might be wrong but I believe the ones with the stripe are normally negative there might be two diff size spade connectors
pull out your stereo and check the cables write it down cus i did that and i put the stereo back and i forgot which one was wich
Yeah if they were stock I would have thought they had diff size spade connectors.
Here’s what FCm said about the FRONT speaker leads…maybe this will help you with the rear as well?
" The wires are the stock speaker leads, blue/green is left front speaker pos.(+) and gray/black is left front speaker neg.(-)."
one spade is bigger than the other. The only problem is both wires have stripes down them
It does not matter how you connect them, as long as both are the same, [small terminals on each speakers neg.(-) or pos.(+) terminal] there is no pos.(+) and neg.(-) speaker wire, output from an amp is AC, you do not want DC out of your amp, [that includes amps in HUs], if you connect them wrong the speaker will be out of phase with each other, [it will not hurt the speakers] but you will get no bass from them.
An easy test is to connect the leads to the speakers, play some tunes, fade all the way, [in your case] to the rear speakers and use the balance to balance all the way to the left and/or right and back to center.
If bass is better when just the left or right speaker is playing then when both are playing, the speakers are out of phase, switch the leads on one of the speakers, [either one, it makes no diff.] to put the speakers in phase with each other.
If when you do the above and bass is better when both speakers are playing, they are in phase and your done. 94
[QUOTE=fcm;2143425]It does not matter how you connect them, as long as both are the same, [small terminals on each speakers neg.(-) or pos.(+) terminal] there is no pos.(+) and neg.(-) speaker wire, output from an amp is AC, you do not want DC out of your amp, [that includes amps in HUs], if you connect them wrong the speaker will be out of phase with each other, [it will not hurt the speakers] but you will get no bass from them.
An easy test is to connect the leads to the speakers, play some tunes, fade all the way, [in your case] to the rear speakers and use the balance to balance all the way to the left and/or right and back to center.
If bass is better when just the left or right speaker is playing then when both are playing, the speakers are out of phase, switch the leads on one of the speakers, [either one, it makes no diff.] to put the speakers in phase with each other.
If when you do the above and bass is better when both speakers are playing, they are in phase and your done. 94[/QUOTE]
thanks that tells me all that i need. I wasnt sure if it was AC or DC that went thoguh the speakers but now i know