Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

[Dave Locher]

I just finished making a new speaker cable for my amp. My four-year-old son was running around distracting me the whole time. After I finished I realized I wasn't certain I used the same wire for positive on each end. I plugged it in as a patch cord, and it works fine. Does that mean it is correct? I am guessing no sound would go through if one end were switched?

What I'm really asking is, is there an easy way to tell if a Cable is soldered up correctly or incorrectly? My guess is that it will only work if it is correct. But I want to verify this before I run my amp head through it.

 

[IM4Tone]

Re: Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

It will work either way. Some people will argue about phasing, but I don't think it's possible to tell in a one cabinet setup. If you were to run two cabinets with each having it's own speaker cable and one was wired reversed, the phasing does enter into it and some cancellation of sound waves occurs.

But to the main point: yes, it is easy to check your work if you have a multi-meter. Check continuity of the cable tip to tip of the opposite end. If impedance is near zero, it's wired correctly, if there is infinite (open circuit) impedance, it isn't. Do the same for barrel to barrel to double check....simple enough.

 

[Darg1911]

Re: Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

Are the wires the same color? If not, unscrew both ends and check ...

Assuming the wires are the same colors (or you heat shrunk everything up tight) .... Got a meter? Set it to check continuity or resistance. Check tip on one end to tip on the other, or sleeve on one end to sleeve on the other. If you read continuity (beep) or low resistance (a couple ohms or less) from tip to tip and/or sleeve to sleeve, then you have it wired right. If you swapped the wires around, you will read/measure nothing or very high resistance values between tips or sleeves. Instead, you will have continuity or resistance between sleeve on one end and tip on the other. It will still work but that would be reverse polarity = out of phase. If that's the case, swap wire positions at one connector.

Edit ... IM4tone beat me to it. Thinking about it, I think I agree about not hearing any phase differences with a single cabinet. Not sure though. I can hear it with switching the phase switches on both outputs of an ABY feeding both channel inputs into a 4 input Marshall, so who knows? And you will definitely hear it with stereo speakers or two cabs. But I would get it right anyway.

 

[IM4Tone]

Re: Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

There's an echo in here! :laughing:

 

[Darg1911]

Re: Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

There's an echo in here! :laughing:

Sort of. It took me more words

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

Thank you both!
The wires are the same color and I did shrink tube everything. But I do have a multimeter and will do the continuity check.

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

It checks out fine. Thanks.

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

There's a lesson here. Don't use cable that has the same color insulation on the core wires, and don't heat shrink the ends until after you plug it in and test it, and even then it's a good idea to do a visual double check too. I apologize if this comes of as condescending, I too have made these types of mistakes doing wiring projects, and know how much it sucks having to go back and try to fix it.

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: Dumb question: Will a speaker cable transmit sound if wired wrong?

I agree with all of that.
I think I would have been smart enough to check everything before sealing it up if I hadn't had my "helper" with me!