i was trying to figure out how to find out which wire is positive or negative on the door wiring...i changed the speaker on the door and replaced the factory but as i took it out i didnt know which was positive or negative since i didnt hook up the HU ...my friend told me take a batery from a drill and hook it up to the speaker while it was hooked up and if it poped up it was right if it popped down it wasnt..but how could i know which was pos or neg on the drill bat...anyways could i have messed anything up i was hearing weird sounds while i was doing it coming from the back sorry for the book guys lol

I use a AA battery for checking phase and position on speakers when hooking to amp. + & - is easy when using a AA and yes movement out of the cone is correct.

Look online for you car's wiring diagram and you will find one easily that will tell you what colors are what wires for your factory speaker wiring.

yea i shouda used that instead of a drill batt..think i ***** anything up by doing that

I'd just test it out either way. You won't hurt the speaker by hooking the phase up backwards. In some scenarios it's actually beneficial to hook up one speaker out of phase. At any rate, it will be easy to distinguish when they're not in correct phase, because when you hook them up, change the balance from center to one side. If the bass increases when you shift to only one speaker, it's because the speakers are out of phase and you should switch the wires of one. If the bass is best with the balance at 0, they're in correct phase.

in what scenario is it better to hook a speaker out of phase..?? why would you wana do that makes no sense

in what scenario is it better to hook a speaker out of phase..?? why would you wana do that makes no sense

Makes lots of sense. Sound arrives at your ear at different times and at different paths of the sound wave. This can cancel out what one ear is hearing.

Ideally you want the sound to arrive at both ears at the same time. Hard to do when one driver is 1' away and the other is 4' away. Wiring one driver out of phase can help this as it is delaying one driver to hopefully have them arrive at the same time at the same wave length to your ears.

Because of varying distances between the listener and the drivers, vehicle nodes and acoustics, etc, and how they relate to a frequency's wavelength and phase when the sound reached your ears. Wiring interior speakers out of phase is not at all like wiring subs in the same box out of phase in terms of performance consequences.

For example, say you're 1 foot from speaker A and 3 feet from speaker B, and you play a frequency has a wavelength of 4 feet. When the sound from speaker A reaches you, the wavelength will be at its peak position (we'll say the +1 position, relative to a 0 line). But when the wave from speaker B hits you, due to the increased distance from the speaker, the wavelength is at its trough, or -1 position. That means the sound waves are 180 degrees out of phase with each other and will cancel out. If you reverse polarity of one of the speakers, say speaker B, the sound wave will reach your ears with the wavelength at the peak/+1 position, just like speaker A, thus reinforcing the sound and not cancelling it out.

The time alignment feature on many head units today are there due to the distance discrepencies between the listener and each speaker in a car audio environment. You don't sit in the middle of your car (unless you drive a McLaren F1), so each speaker is offset from your ears a different distance. Time alignment retards the signal to certain speakers so that the sound waves reach your ears at the same time from each speaker. It's a different concept than reversing polarity like I mentioned above, but same end goal in mind of aligning wavelengths.

So your saying if you could sit in the middle of your car speakers wired the right way in the right phase would be the best way to go

What's this have to do with Fi?

ignore this guy...who cares dude.. so your saying if you could sit in the middle of your car: speakers wired the right way in the right phase is the best option

I didn't even realize this was in the Fi forum, good catch Phi. I'm not going to ignore it, because it has nothing to do with Fi. I'm moving it to a different forum.

you guys keep moving stuff around eventually it all comes down to if your here you have Fi or plan on getting on it or your a fan so i dont see the diference

no.

alright well what do you think about the speakers

Your ear should decide.

As a reference though, I have NEVER owned a car where having all the drivers in phase sounded best. Never.