Wiring Speakers

[kenntak]

My parents bought a house that had prewiring for outside speakers. There was no indication with the speaker wire as to polarity. How do you know if you have wired the speakers correctly if you do not know the polarity? If I have wire going from the black terminal on the receiver to the red terminal on the speaker would the speaker work at all, or would its performance be diminished?

[Selvyn]

My parents bought a house that had prewiring for outside speakers. There was no indication with the speaker wire as to polarity. How do you know if you have wired the speakers correctly if you do not know the polarity? If I have wire going from the black terminal on the receiver to the red terminal on the speaker would the speaker work at all, or would its performance be diminished?

The important thing is that all your speakers are connected with the same polarity, if they are not it's not going to damage anything but it's probably not going to sound very good. One way to check which wire is which is to connect a diode across a pair of wires on one end and then use a multimeter at the other end . (Diodes conduct only one way so you should be able to figure out which wire is which).

[kenntak]

Thank you!