# how do you determine positive and negative speaker wire?



## 6603 (Aug 26, 2004)

Well I am doing a HU and speaker install in one of my Mercedes.
I know that the fat tab is pos and the skinny tab is neg on a speaker. 
But for wire which one is pos?
For example green wire and green wire with black stripe. Grey wire and grey wire with black stripe.
The previous owner had green speaker wire with the black strip connected to a grey wire connecting to the fat tab. Green wire connected to gray wire with black stripe connected to skinny tab.
Thanks.


----------



## afinley (Dec 29, 2004)

*Re: how do you determine positive and negative speaker wire? (6603)*

unless you are anal to a retarded degree, pick one, and stick with it for all your speakers.


----------



## pwnt by pat (Oct 21, 2005)

*Re: how do you determine positive and negative speaker wire? (6603)*

or look at it with the philosophy that it doesn't matter as when tuning the stereo, you're going to be changing positive and negatives back and forth anyways so it doesn't matter.


----------



## supersoaker50 (Aug 4, 2005)

*Re: how do you determine positive and negative speaker wire? (pwnt by pat)*

whenever there is a black stripe(tracer) then thats going to be your negative. 
black or brown tracer, but that goes for anything inside vw's http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif


----------



## Wishing on a Vr (Feb 7, 2003)

*Re: how do you determine positive and negative speaker wire? (schnell_8v)*

its easy my man... get a AA battery with two strands of wires.. just enought for the test and connect it to the AA battery, if it pops its connected right.. if i sucks in then its wrong... http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif


----------



## bugmanrs (Feb 12, 2001)

*Re: how do you determine positive and negative speaker wire? (Wishing on a Vr)*

Yeah, that'll check which two wires connect to what speaker, not tell you which one is positive and which is negative. But as stated above, it doesn't matter as long as all of them are connected the same on every speaker.


----------



## Non_Affiliated (Feb 12, 2002)

*Re: how do you determine positive and negative speaker wire? (bugmanrs)*

General rule when using a AA battery for speaker polarity. When the cone moves out Look at which wire you touched to the batterys' + end. Consider that to be the + lead and the other negative. Just make sure to keep it consistant all the way around. If you do Vice versa, then keep that consistant.


----------

