If a cord isn't red or black how do you know which is the positive and ground?

Question

I'm trying to hook up my speaker wires and instead of red for positive and black for negative, my speakers' wires are grey; each speaker has two grey wires; one with a blue stripe and one that is solid grey. If I remember correctly, isn't positive always the "marked" wire and the ground or negative is the solid color (so my grey-with-a-blue-stripe wire would be positive and my solid grey wire would be ground)? I haven't done this is a long time, so I just wanted to get a second thought.

Answer 1

There is no set standard, but the electrical industry always marks negative. I would tell my technicians to use the blue striped wire as negative for this reason. It's a good habit to pick one way or the other and run with it, always.

Answer 2

It doesn't matter as long as you're consistent. Just make sure to hook + to + and - to - .

Answer 3

There is no universal code for positive or negative/ground terminals.  There are on the other hand industry preferences, oftenly green can be live while white is ground.  If you have a meter (multimeter) more specifically a digital one you can test these wires using the meters test leads if the display shows a negative voltage then the polarity is reverse which leads are touching which wire.  There are wuite a few other ways to test this but this is the most readily available and easiest.

Answer 4

it doesnt matter as long as you dont cross the cable.

but sometimes it have a negative sign (-) printed along the cable others have like a fins along the cable  so one side is smooth the other have like fins, other just one wire is copper the other is like silver(the inside not the jacket), the whole purpose of this is not what negative and whats positive is just for you to know what cable you put on what, so for example if you connect the smooth one to the positive you connect the smooth one in the positive in the other side as well.