audio question, speaker wire, whitch is negative..

[mob]

Alright Im trying to put new speakers in the rear of the hatch, 6x8's only problem is I dont know whitch wire is the negative and whitch is positive. On the passenger side the wires are brown with pink stripe, and the other wire is red with like a blue stripe, I dont remember whitch the other is but is there some kind of diagram or does someone know which wire is which for the rear speakers? What if I mix them up just as a guess, could I mess up the speaker or should I just try that?

 

[S&B]

You wont be able to hear if you mess up the polarity unless your a sound gawd, if you would like I can look it up for you in my wire book. Let me know its not a problem at all. But short answer is you can just hook them up how you feel

 

[5.0Droptop]

Pull radio out and look at the after market plug. The wires are labled if you used the plug.

 

[mob]

does it matter if i put the negative on the positive and the positive on the negative? Obviously it wont work but I can just switch them back around, but could that mess the speakers up anyway?

If that wont work then if you could look it up s&b that would be great, I have minimal tools since I moved to this apartment, Im working with a pocket knife and electrical tape to put these in. Cant really get my radio off.

 

[5.0Droptop]

It will work either way. It will not "hurt" anything. What happens is it makes the speaker cone reverse direction when its backwards. Liske S&B said you most likely wont notice the sound difference.

 

[mob]

oh haha gotcha, sorry Im a newb at sound stuff, feel kinda dumb now. Thanks.

 

[S&B]

sounds like you should just hook it up, unless your running 4k watts from your massive system you will be fine.
Usually a pro can power up the amp and taste what wire is positve and which one is negative.

you can always use the jar of peanut butter method as well.

 

[mob]

Alright I put them on real quick to see if they would work and only the rear speakers dont work. Why could that be? I had a stock amp in it a while ago but took that out a long time ago. I had only one rear speaker working a few months ago but it went out recently.

 

[Prime Lord]

If you look at the wires on the rear, there is one wire that is the same color on both left and right sides. That wire is the ground. The wire thats different on each side is the hot. Just did mine last weekend.

Mine was:

Green/white +
Pink/Blue -

Pink/Green +
Pink/Blue -

So you hooked up both speakers and they don't work? If you disconnect one does the other one work? Double check and make sure that you don't have a bare wire touching the body on the inside.

 

[S&B]

Alright I put them on real quick to see if they would work and only the rear speakers dont work. Why could that be? I had a stock amp in it a while ago but took that out a long time ago. I had only one rear speaker working a few months ago but it went out recently.

So are you drinking and working on the car?

You had a stock amp, ( under pass seat?) and it went out?

Or you had a stock amp and put a head unit in with a built in amp and now your trying to hook the rear speakers up so you have sound?

 

[SVT32VDOHC]

It shouldn't hurt anything. Sometimes one will work one won't. But on a factory harness it should work either way. IT might sound better one was vs. the other. I am actaully installing door speakers tonight in Hack Job....I'm going to do trial and error.

 

[mob]

I dont think my head unit has a built in amp. I had a stock amp, I remember it being in the hatch when I took it out though. My stock headunit never worked when I got my car. So after I took out the amp, I got a head unit, and I found one of my rear speakers, the dash speakers still worked. So I had sound, then not too long ago the rear speaker stopped working, so I figure the speaker is bad, so I got two new ones for the rear, and I just tried one of them and no sound came out, only in the dash.

 

[S&B]

It shouldn't hurt anything. Sometimes one will work one won't. But on a factory harness it should work either way. IT might sound better one was vs. the other. I am actaully installing door speakers tonight in Hack Job....I'm going to do trial and error.

if your using a 01 H/U just look for an aftermarket wire harness online you should be able to determine which wire goes where that way. You were able to get the windows working hooking up the radio should be childs play

 

[S&B]

I dont think my head unit has a built in amp. I had a stock amp, I remember it being in the hatch when I took it out though. My stock headunit never worked when I got my car. So after I took out the amp, I got a head unit, and I found one of my rear speakers, the dash speakers still worked. So I had sound, then not too long ago the rear speaker stopped working, so I figure the speaker is bad, so I got two new ones for the rear, and I just tried one of them and no sound came out, only in the dash.

as far as I know when you use a aftermarket head unit with a factory amp, you must leave the factory amp in the car because the after market wire harness sends the signal to the amp then the amp sends it out to your speakers. To make life easy just run a new set of wires up to the Head unit and splice them in to your headunits wire harness. Using an aftermarke head unit with a factory amp never works right especially on a 20 year old car.

or buy a boom box and duct tape it to the dash

 

[Prime Lord]

If you have an aftermarket head unit, it has an amp in it. You can always run new wires from your head unit to the back speaker spots.

 

[mob]

so I dont reall have to run "new" wire. I can just cut the speaker wire off the stock harness and splice it into the cd player harness correct?

 

[S&B]

so I dont reall have to run "new" wire. I can just cut the speaker wire off the stock harness and splice it into the cd player harness correct?

If you really had a stock amp your wires in the rear will lead you to the orginal amp location, not behind the dash where your head unit is. check the wires and if you can find the same colored wires hooked up to your head unit then you probably have a short somewhere.
but yes you can splice into the wires but if your going through all that work just run new wires.

 

[mob]

For me the work is running the wires through the car. So Say I did get new wires and I ran them through the car. The wires on the back of my head unit arent labeled at all, how do I know which to splice them with? Behind my head unit I have like 3 harnesses only one of them is being used...Im not sure which the others are for.

Now I looked the and the wires I have in the rear are

passenger side-brown/dark purple, pink/blue
driver side-orange, pink/blue

I looked behind the dash at the harness that was hooked up to the cd player and I found the two pink/blue wires but I onlw found a brown/pink wire instead of dark purple and there is no solid orange wire back there. Ive had the driver side stock speaker working with the aftermarket headunit without the factory amp.

Say there is a short, if I get new speaker wires would that fix it? Or would the short be somewhere else, and how could I go about finding out whitch are the speaker wires in the aftermarket cd player harness?

 

[Prime Lord]

Yeah, you can run brand new wires from the back of your head unit to the rear speaker locations or if they terminate somewhere, thats where your stock amp used to be.

The ground is your pink/blue wire and it runs all the way to your headunit. The hot would have come from the amp if you had it. Follow the hot lines from the speakers and see where they go. If you can't find it behind the head unit, its likely a deadend somewhere.

 

[S&B]

do you have an aftermarket wire harness that connects to your factory harness and then your head unit? if so there should be 4 sets of wires (white, white w/black stripe, Green, Green with black stripe, Purple, purple with black stripe, and brown, brown with black stripe)

or did someone just splice into the facotry wires behind the actual harness making it look like a gehto rig?

what brand of aftermarket head unit do you have?