Question about speaker cable

[vanessa]

I'm making my own speaker cable (amp to cab that is) and I picked up some clear jacket 14g 2-wire speaker cable. It has two strands of wire (hence the name 2-wire...  ) one is copper and the other looks to be silver. I'm assuming one is a better conductor and would be the signal and the other the ground? Is the silver one the signal or the ground?

[blanik]

mojo!   

lol, if there are difference in conduction it would be in the range where you need specialized equipment to detect it....

personnaly, i just buy regular electrical cord at the hardware store (the type of cord that plugs a hairdryer or a lamp...) the important thing is to have 2 separated wires and not a shielded wire...

R.

[John Lyons]

The wire you have should be fine. 14 guage is plenty thick assuming it's not 200 feet long!
Usually the red wire or red stripe is hot and the lighter color is negative.
It will work either way, just make sure you use the same connection for + at both ends.
Using different connections at both ends will also work but the speaker will push in instead of out!
With more than one speaker in the cab and wired one different from the other the phase will cancel and you will have a reduction in bass.
Thanks about it...

John

[Meanderthal]

 Usually for that clear cable the copper side is +, the aluminum side - . At least, in the few cases I've seen it storebought with banana plugs prewired. I suppose it really wouldn't make a difference which side you use for which, as long as you do it the same way at both ends. After all, you don't want to be running DC through it...