Which is pos/neg? Red or White?

[Hazman]

Hey guys, sorry for the dumb question... but with front speakers that have a red wire and a white wire, which is positive and which is negative? Thanks.

 

[Matthew]

red is positive

 

[hi-perf]

usually whichever one is thicker is power and the smaller one is ground

 

[changedman]

red is always positive.

 

[Patmine]

easiest way to check if the polarity is correct is to take a 9v battery and pop the speaker. if the speaker moves outward then the polarity is correct, if it moves inward then it is out of phase, meaning that the + and the negative are backwards

 

[sndsgood]

the speaker can move inward and still be considered in phase. don't be to concerned with wich is plus or wich is minus on mids and highs, best thing to do is hook them up and listen, then switch them around and listen again, decide on wich sounds better to your ears and go with it. depending on pathlengths to the listner a speaker that is wired in phase according to the + and - on the speaker, can hit your ears out of phase, most installers will play with the polarity accordingly, it's not that uncommon to find a guy running a componet set with say the passenger door mid in reverse polarity then the tweeter. now when your dealing with subwoofers, polarity is allot more important. u can still reverse the phase, but the polarity of both sub woofers must match each other or cancelation will occur.

 

[Hazman]

Thanks for the responses. I ended up using red for positive. The reason I needed to know this is because last night I put in new RF Punch 6x8s in front of my '99 LX. My initial reaction was that they were a lot less bassy, but also a lot more clear and articulate. I think my perception that they were less bassy than the stock speakers might be due to the fact that they are simply less muddy and muffled. Either way, they sound great.