Connecting Speakers to AV Receiver

[Legend]

I bought a Pioneer VSX-D514 today. I used to have a Sony DAV300 all in one DVD/Amp thing, so for now, I'm just going to use the speakers and cable from that. Here's the thing. The end of the cables had sony specific connections on them. I chopped them off so the bare cable fits into the new amp. However, I have no way of knowing which is positive and which is negative. They're marked grey and black at the speaker end, so that's fine, but at the other end, I've no way of knowing. I can't trace the cable back because they run under the floorboards.

They seem to work fine know matter which way I plug them in, so what I want to know is:

- Is there a difference in sound quality if I have the negative/positive mixed up?

- Can I damage the speakers or amp by having them mixed up?

- Is there any way of finding out which is positive/negative without having to pull the cables up?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Cable Monkey]

No damage will result, but the signal will be out of phase resulting in poor stereo/multichannel imaging.
Get another length of cable. Connect the black up at the amp, connect the other leg at the amp to your extra cable. Connect the extra cable at the speaker end one leg of your original cable. Turn on (with sound turned down) and turn up. No sound = wrong leg, sound = correct leg. Mark and connect up as normal. Take great care when doing this. You don't want to blow your amp.

 

[craynerd]

can i just add to that question : its my first system ever, and i`m trying to connect the speaker wires to the back of the amp, the amps a denon 2106. So i have used the manual to locate the correct sockets , which i know i ahve found, but i`m unsure on the correct way of physically connecting the wires! There are like little screws that you can undo and i presume you push the bare wire inside the hole and clamp it up! BUT its just when you unscrew it, the hole is in a really wierd location and v v awquard to get to which makes me think it isnt right!!! V confused! I`ve had it working, but i`m still unsure of how to make sure its properly connected!

Any ideas?

(like i say, the hole (where i presume to push the wire) opens up between the set which makes them in a really strange position, have it got it wrong?)

Chris

 

[Knyght_byte]

ok, easy way out for the getting the cable in part, buy some banana plugs, even Dixons sell a cheap packet of them now i think....that will make it easier as you just push them in and pull them out, no need to unscrew stuff...

for checking they are wired correctly, just get a DVD with the THX Optimizer on (Star Wars films have them, some cartoons, few other films)
then just run through the audio section on that, it has a phase check thing, if it doesnt sound right then you got something wrong and you'll have to experiment switching the cables around till it works ok

 

[Legend]

for checking they are wired correctly, just get a DVD with the THX Optimizer on (Star Wars films have them, some cartoons, few other films)
then just run through the audio section on that, it has a phase check thing, if it doesnt sound right then you got something wrong and you'll have to experiment switching the cables around till it works ok

Excellent, thanks.