Positive, negative, which is which?

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Jun 23, 2005 | 06:23 PM

#16

swanee

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Tuned

Joined: Dec 2003

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FordPickupMan that would be a great help! I have a 2004 and my wire colors don't jive with your list, I guess they changed them since 2000. Also thankyou everyone else that nine volt battery test is pretty neat. Is that an industry standard having positive and negative orientated the same way, left and right?

Jun 23, 2005 | 07:25 PM

#17

RomerB2

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From: Bixby, OK

Moves from the magnet outward. Aka outer excursion. But that's only to find the polarity of the speaker. Swanee's needing to know what the wire colors are.. positive or negative.

Jul 13, 2005 | 03:11 PM

#18

e250guy

Cross-Country

Joined: Aug 2004

Posts: 85

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From: So Cal

Quote:

Originally Posted by RomerB2

Moves from the magnet outward. Aka outer excursion. But that's only to find the polarity of the speaker. Swanee's needing to know what the wire colors are.. positive or negative.

Doing the same thing on my '94 e250 cargo van. Need to know which is which. Replacing both front door speakers with "custom-fit" pioneer 6x8's. Both right and left have black wires w/a white stripe. From my previous dealings with car audio, black ain't always negative. Case in point, connecting the + speaker wire to the seeminly + van wire SEEMS to give a lower quality sound despite the traditional thinking that black is - and color is +. When swithed, the sound seems slightly better, but as someone pointed out, you still want to connect the wires properly regardless of sound quality. Right?

Jul 13, 2005 | 03:15 PM

#19

chrono4

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From: Elkhart IN

it shouldnt hurt anything to do it backwards, unless your dealing with subs and whatnot, as i think that you could cause some damage from coming out too far. and about the black wire, on house wiring the black wire is the hot,and usually so is red.

Jul 13, 2005 | 05:04 PM

#20

e250guy

Cross-Country

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From: So Cal

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrono4

it shouldnt hurt anything to do it backwards, unless your dealing with subs and whatnot, as i think that you could cause some damage from coming out too far.

Ok. I figured it can't do too much damage being backwards however I have installed speakers several times into non-performance type systems with the wires crossed and had varying results sometimes extreme, sometimes no big difference.

At any rate, I didn't want to, and I figured it would take less time than searching around for the answer, but I decided to pull the head unit to confirm the + and -.

So for anyone that has an e-series circa 1994, the black with whatever color stripe is the negative (as least it was in this case).

Thanks

Jul 14, 2005 | 11:09 PM

#21

thewizard

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Joined: May 2004

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From: Phoenix AZ

9 volt battery to test polarity?

Forget using a 9 volt battery.

Use a 1.5 volt AAA, AA, C or D cell. It works just as good as the 9 with much less current (1/6th less), the higher the voltage, the higher risk for low wattage speakers.

Jul 18, 2005 | 03:48 PM

#22

MrBSS

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From: Chicago Area

You don't need to worry which way they go as long as both go the same way. In other words, if both + terminals are hooked to - it's OK, but if one is hooked to + and the other to -, some of the sound will be canceled. This is most noticeable on the lower frequencies, which is why it's not very obvious with less expensive speakers.

Incidentally, adding an out of phase signal is how noise-canceling headphones work.

Last edited by MrBSS; Jul 18, 2005 at 04:01 PM.

Jul 18, 2005 | 06:57 PM

#23

RomerB2

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From: Bixby, OK

The bass won't be as strong though, and some things may sound less than optimum quality. Look behind the HU get the wire colors there and see which is positive and which is negative.. then hook up the speakers with that info.

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Jul 19, 2005 | 11:44 AM

#24

MrBSS

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From: Chicago Area

I guess if there's any question, I would keep the + to +, and the - to -. However, as long as they are all in phase, I don't believe it would make any difference. I don't think there's any bias voltage, so how would it? Maybe in the crossover network; I'd have to think about it.

If you (RomerB2) can back up or explain your statement, I would appreciate the education.