Gold and silver in speaker cable

[xtreon]

I just bought some speaker cable and one copper in it is gold and one is silver, which of them is + and which is -?

Thanks

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[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

One side is bare copper the other is tinned copper. They are made that way to make it easy to tell polarity. As far as which one is (+) and (-), it's whichever one you hook up that way. The wire doesn't know the difference and since you're working with AC the actual polarity switches many times a second.

 

[wgsj_fortvalley 10+ year member]

doesnt matter. i usually use the bare copper as + and the tinned copper as - but its personal preference.

 

[Saint211 10+ year member]

Hey, it could change with region/groups, but everyone Ive ever known in the install world does it the following way:

Bare/tinned copper

bare: + tinned: -

normal/striped wires

normal: + striped: -

round/square wire

square: + round: -

but as application goes it doesnt matter