Where is gets even more complicated is when you’re dealing with balanced audio inputs, as with pro sound and broadcast. Instead of one signal wire and one ground, balanced audio lines have two signal wires, + and a -, plus ground. This is good in that since both signals are referenced to ground but in opposite (instantaneous) polarity, any noise or interference induced into the cable externally gets canceled out. Balanced signals are generally higher in amplitude which also decreases the noise level (or more correctly, increases the signal-to-noise ratio. The down side is you have to be very careful to keep the phase aligned all through the signal processing chain, including limiters, amps, etc. Often the only way to do it properly is to put a scope on the final audio outputs, and of course the speaker phase affects the final sound as well. Ironically, it is possible to mis-wire a system so that if the phase is flipped an even number of times throughout the chain, it winds up being back in phase again at the output … a rare case of two wrongs making a right!

Thanks for your comprehensive response though.

Here is an ASCII diagram for your test wire:

RED port ——— wire A ——- red lead —————
AMP/RECIEVER DVM reading
BLACK port ——— wire B ——- black lead ———

If DVM reading equals – (neg) then if you measure another “unkown” wire and get -(neg) reading, you know the correct configuration for the speaker.

Now for the unkown wire, place leads on wires until you get this same -(neg) reading, you now know that the red lead corresponds to the wire for the RED port on the reciever, etc…

For wiring speakers up correctly, you do the following (no batteries needed to check for pushing or popping, no swapping the wires, none of that crap):

Hook up a small piece of speaker wire to any of the speaker ports on the reciever/amp(front, rear channel whatever).

Now set your DVM to measure DC (we get the DC equivalent reading of the AC and subsequent polarity or phase).

Now, put the red lead from DVM to the wire thats connected to the red lead port, and do the same for the black lead of the DVM and place it on the wire connected to the black port of your reciever. Now you will get a reading, the numerical part of it you can ignore, what you want is + or – part of it. If its – , that means the rest of your speakers should be connected this exact way. It will show + if you reverse it which means you placed the black lead on the wire connected to red and red lead to wire connected to black, that means you shouldn’t connect the rest of your speakers that way.

So just to clarify if you are still confused:

(this is for your short testing wire you hooked up) If the reading you got while placing red lead to RED port wire and placing black lead to BLACK port wire is a – (negative symbol), then you know how the rest should look like when you place the DVM on the other wires.

That is, if you have a speaker wire coming out from some place in the wall or ceiling, and want to know how your speaker should be hooked up (which wire goes where), place your RED lead of your DVM to one of the wires, and BLACK lead to the remaining wire, if it gives you – (neg) symbol that means the RED lead wire will go to the RED speaker port, so now you know.

Just to add, I’m no expert, but this seems like simple logic to me, so don’t take my “expert” word for it if you know what I mean.