Not sure if i should have posted this in 'advice' but i thought I would post it here as it is a technical issue.

Why do some speaker wires have a 'white' line on one of the wires and others (which are grey wire) have a black line.

Now...i know one is positive...and one is negative, but do the white lines on black speaker cable indicate positive with the full black wire being negative...or is the white line negative?

I cannot take the speakers apart to find this out and i don't want to damage either the system or speakers by incorrectly wiring them (although i have been told that it does not make any difference)

Black= Negative ?
Black with white line= Positive?
Black= Positive?
Black with white Line= Negative?

These are 'Aiwa' speakers with built in subwoofer.

Any help would be appreciated...thx in advance.

The colour of the stripe by and large has no relevance whatsoever except to identify one core.

The general convention is that the stripe indicates positive. Assuming both wires are otherwise the same colour.

If two colours are used the most common would be black and red. With red being positive and black negative.

However you are unlikely to damage the speakers by swaping negative and positive.

If the wires get crossed the speaker will be out of phase, you will tend to lose bass, they won't short out.

Try both ways and see if you can hear a difference.

I'd say black was negative and connect them that way.

I have noticed some speaker wire is grey with a red stripe which (as far as i know) is 'positive'

Black wire with a white stripe may also be positive (white stripe)

Also i have noticed the 'ohms' differ somewhat.

The system is 4 ohms and the speakers are 6 ohms nominal.... Hmmmm....

As I said the stripe colour is irrelevant. Treat them all as positive if the two wires are the same base colour.

The ohms issue may be to do with what the amplifier can drive and what actual load the speakers provide.

The amplifier may be rated as x watts into y ohms with one or two figures given. Provided the speakers impedance is equal to or higher than the lowest figiure quoted for the amplifier then you will be OK.

The amplifier rating merely tells you how much current it is capable of supplying before it runs out of go. Running an amplifier into too low a load impedance can make it run out of current too soon and either trip the protection circuits or cook the power transistors (depending on how well it is designed)

A speaker can only be out-of-phase with other speakers, not with itself. So as long as all the speakers in a system are wired consistently, it should not make any difference which way round the terminals are connected.

The system amp is 19 x 19 wpc and the speakers can handle up to 80 watts per channel if this helps.

The speakers' impedance is marked as 6 ohms "nominal" because it will vary considerably with the audio frequency.

It is within spec for your amplifier.

Thanks for that advice...didn't know that one.

Are they the same type of watts?

Not as daft a question as it seems since in the "my dangly bit is bigger than your dangly bit" world these people inhabit they have invented a whole range of largely meaningless units to describe power.

The only one that really means anything is RMS. You may see something like Peak Music Power or similar. Trouble is an 80W PMP speaker could be as little as 8W RMS which means it could be overloaded by your amp if that is 19W RMS.

That is not as serious as it may appear at first glance though. Better to have too much power than too little! You can always turn a too powerful amp down. But an underpowered amp driven beyond it's capabilities in an attempt to imitate a Motorhead gig can run into serious clipping. This can be as bad for a speaker as shoving too much power into it.

The watts are RMS...

Thanks for ALL the replies (you learn something new everyday)...my query is now at ease...cheers guys!

If I remember correctly if you connect a 1.5v battery across the speaker leads and the cone jumps outward then the lead that connects to the positive connector of the battery is the + connection.