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Thread: Criss-crossing positives and negatives on speaker wires? |
    
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| Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 11:09 am: |
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Moved into a new place that has wall speaker jacks for rear surrond sound speakers. I replaced just the cheaper wall plate and jacks and connected better quality ones with the wire that was already in the wall. The wire is generic and the gauge is decent, but i can't tell what line is positive and what's negative. I'm not sure the contractor cared either cause of the poor soldering job done on the previous jacks. I wanted to rerun the line but it would be too difficult. All that being said, what are some problems that might occur with criss-crossing the negative and positive wires when connecting the rear speakers and is there a way to know which is positive and which is negative before connecting the wallplate jack. |
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| Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 11:22 am: |
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Oh... and by "can't tell what line is positive and what's negative", I mean the wire covering is not marked or color coded. |
Silver Member Username: Cuylar
Burnsville,
MN
USA
Post Number: 163
Registered: Nov-05
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| Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 11:30 am: |
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Time to take out the good 'ol multimeter |
Silver Member Username: Chitown
Post Number: 511
Registered: Apr-05
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| Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 12:37 pm: |
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Yes I concur. If you cross the wires you will, at best, send your receiver into a protection mode and at worst damage the speakers.
Get the meter and be sure.
This is strange. So if you strip the wires one is not copper and one silver color? Did he even used speaker wires?
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| Posted on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 01:45 pm: |
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Yea, they look like speaker wire. Both positive and negative wires are copper color. Guess I'm going to the hardware store. Thanks! |
Silver Member Username: Reinhart
Post Number: 253
Registered: Nov-05
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| Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 08:04 pm: |
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Actually, crossing the wires will more likely result in receiver damage if it cannot react fast enough in activating the protection mode in the even of a short.
As for copper wires, it's possible that the person who installed them used multi-strand electrical wire.
Another thing that could be done to determine polarity is to run DC power from a battery on the cable (of course, after the cables are disconnected from the receiver and speakers and if the cables are not shorted).
On one end, hook one wire to the positive and the other on the negative. Mark the wires at that end, one black for negative and the other red for positive.
On the other end of the wiring, use a multimeter set to read voltage in DC and probe the ends. According to what the meter reads, mark those ends according to their polarity. - Reinhart |
Silver Member Username: Reinhart
Post Number: 254
Registered: Nov-05
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| Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 08:07 pm: |
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Upon further reading, you mean "criss-cross" as reverse polarity as opposed to a short.
Reverse polarity won't cause damage to your equipment. But, it will cause phase problems which will affect your fidelity.
My previous post should still be able to help you in establishing the positive and negative ends of the wiring. - Reinhart |
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| Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 08:46 am: |
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Thanks alot for the great information! Very much appreciative! |
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