HELP speaker wire
Discussion
Afternoon chums, I need some urgent help.
Does the negative wire for each speaker on a surround system have to go to the same speaker as the positive?
Long story short, I currently have the entire living room floor up and am taping down a set of 6.1 bose speaker cables from one side of the room to the other, they then disappear through a wall into the garage. They came all joined together in ribbon format, but I couldn`t get it to lie flat on the path it has to take, so parted them all to allow for bends etc (concrete floor). No problem I thought, all the cables are marked..........however having just spent 3 hours doing this I now have a bunch of marked positives and a bunch of plain negatives inside the garage
Before i have to rip it all up and start again, does it actually matter which negative goes where??
Cheers in advance
Dave
Does the negative wire for each speaker on a surround system have to go to the same speaker as the positive?
Long story short, I currently have the entire living room floor up and am taping down a set of 6.1 bose speaker cables from one side of the room to the other, they then disappear through a wall into the garage. They came all joined together in ribbon format, but I couldn`t get it to lie flat on the path it has to take, so parted them all to allow for bends etc (concrete floor). No problem I thought, all the cables are marked..........however having just spent 3 hours doing this I now have a bunch of marked positives and a bunch of plain negatives inside the garage
Before i have to rip it all up and start again, does it actually matter which negative goes where??
Cheers in advance
Dave
I have absolutely no way of justifying or explaining my answer here, but my gyt reaction is yes it probably does matter...
What I'd do is get a battery hooked up to one end and a torch to the other so you can work out which cable goes with which, or just hook up one speaker at a time.
What I'd do is get a battery hooked up to one end and a torch to the other so you can work out which cable goes with which, or just hook up one speaker at a time.
It does matter.
It ensures that the speakers are in phase.
A quick and safe way to check (if you can remove the speaker grill or can see the actual speaker cone) is to take a 1.5v battery and briefly touch it across the cables.
When the phase (aka polarity) is correct, applying the (+) of the battery to the (+) of the speaker, will cause the speaker cone to move forwards (or outwards).
It is essential that speakers are in phase, because if they're not the bass will cancel out (because one speaker is 'pushing' the other one is 'pulling' resulting in cancellation).
HTH.
It ensures that the speakers are in phase.
A quick and safe way to check (if you can remove the speaker grill or can see the actual speaker cone) is to take a 1.5v battery and briefly touch it across the cables.
When the phase (aka polarity) is correct, applying the (+) of the battery to the (+) of the speaker, will cause the speaker cone to move forwards (or outwards).
It is essential that speakers are in phase, because if they're not the bass will cancel out (because one speaker is 'pushing' the other one is 'pulling' resulting in cancellation).
HTH.
LOL, I took it as you having a bunch of ends and you're not sure if you could connect the right speaker -ve to the left speaker -ve and vice versa.
If I've got you right then yes you can but in the interests of keeping things *right* then do your best to make sure that it's all connected up correctly.
If I've got you right then yes you can but in the interests of keeping things *right* then do your best to make sure that it's all connected up correctly.
Gassing Station | Home Cinema & Hi-Fi | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff