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Polarity issue

Hello all, I changed spade connections recently on a pair of anti cable spkr wires(Paul Speltz)and neglected to mark the plus and minus sides for the amp. The spades in question are not marked so I need a way to keep the polarity in sync. I have a radio shack meter and if anyone could assist me on what to do I would be most thankful. I have the wires twisted as recomended and most of the wire is inside my spkr posts for looks so tracing them from the spkr side is not an option. Thanks in advance and enjoy the music.
south43
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
i am no electrical expert, but i would think that you could place an ohm meter across the ends. if they are ends of the same wire, then there would be essentially no resistance; if you had one end of each wire, then the resistance will be infinite.
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
Your meter should be equipped to test continuity. Touch a spade at one end of the anticable with the black lead and a spade at the other end of of the anti cabel with the red lead. If it beeps, you have it, if it is silent, try the other spade.
1markr
594 posts
 
Set your meter to read resistance, and use the lowest setting at that.

Touch one of the ends of the speaker cables (speaker side) with one of the probes from the meter, and then make contact with the opposite end (amp side) of the speaker cable (one at a time, obviously) with the second probe. When the meter needle (or display, if digital) reads "0" then you have isolated a single wire. Mark accordingly.
steve60a5
11 posts
 
Couple of things you can do.

You can just connect the cables to the amp arbitrarily. Give them a listen, taking note of the bass response. Then reverse the leads at the amplifier for one channel. Listen again. If the bass increases, they're now wired in phase. If it decreases, they're reversed so flip the leads around on one of the channels.

If it's not a big inconvenience, this is best done with the speakers as close together as possible.

If you're also concerned about absolute polarity, and if the woofers on your speakers don't have a capacitor connected in series with them, you can take a battery, preferably a 9 volt but a D or C cell will work too, and hold one of the speaker leads to the negative terminal of the battery. Then take the other lead and touch it briefly to the positive terminal of the battery while taking note of what direction the woofer cone moves.

If the cone moves out, then the polarity of the leads are the same as the polarity of the battery, i.e. the lead you're touching to the positive terminal is the positive lead and vice versa.

If the cone moves in, then the polarity of the leads are opposite those of the battery.

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