speaker polarity help!!! (1 Viewer)

[Keith M.]

I recently installed in-wall speaker jacks for my HT under construction, and they were not labeled on the back for (+) and (-).

I want to verify I guessed right when wiring it, by checking the polarity while I still have all the walls open, etc...

I have heard of a test that can be done with a battery, can anyone give me the actual steps to perform this test??

I have temporarily hooked speakers up to the wall jacks and run them into an old receiver, but simply swapping the cables I cant really distinguish a difference...

Thanks in advance...

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I don’t know if this will really help you in this situation, but you have to have a speaker connected to do the battery test. If polarity is correct the woofer driver will move forward. Typically a 9v battery is used, which is a lot of voltage for a speaker, so don’t leave it connected for more than a few seconds.

Any reason why you can’t just pull the speaker jacks out and see how they were connected? Even if the jacks were not labeled on the back, the speaker cable should have some kind of indicator on it. That’s all you need.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Brian Bunge]

I usually use a AA or AAA battery since I always seem to have them handy (like stealing one from a remote temporarily). I did this test today to check which speaker wire went to which of the surround speakers we installed. It also works for polarity too though!

 

[Rick_Brown]

Alternatively, wire up your speakers and put them on the floor, facing each other a few inches apart. Play some bass-heavy music. Then switch the wires on ONE set of speaker terminals back and forth - they are in phase when you hear the strongest bass output.

I often use this method of double-checking phase ever since I bought a pair of speakers many years ago that had the terminals mis-labeled on one of them. Sounded terrible until I figured it out!

 

[Keith M.]

I ran the battery test last night (very cool) and determined the proper connections on the back of the wallplates...

BTW, These double banana wall plates were purchased from Parts Express. So if anyone orders them, I have now determined the (+) is always on the right of the connection blocks. You would think they would simply mark them as such, IDIOTS!!!


Wayne: My problem was not determining the +/- of the wire,
but the connections on the back of the wallplates...


Thanks for all the suggestions/help...