Finding out what Speaker polarity ?

[Oddball]

Hi Folks,
Just a silly question reallly about speaker pos and neg ?

I am putting an old mini hi fi system into my workplace , in fact I already have some speakers in the ceiling from an old Phillips mini system I was going /or did use for a bit a few yrs ago .
I ripped the speaker cable out of the ceiling a while back but now am trying to use another old mini sys , to send my Amazon Echo into the roof of the milking parlour , as it happens

So I have the 2 old Phillips speakers with terminal blocks on them . Have routed more speaker cable . Cant see whats black or red !!! I am not too worried about wiring them wrong , each one has a fifty fifty of being right , but just wondered if my \Ohmmeter multimeter might give me an idea of which is pos and which is neg ?
Would like them to be right from the off as it wont suit to be both out ,or one out .

Cheers now !

[Lawrence001]

Not that I know of on the speaker end, the usual trick on a woofer is a 9v battery across the terminals to see if the woofer goes in or out but that won't work in this case.

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[walpurgis]

I'd use an AA battery. If the cone moves outwards, you have the battery + on the speaker + terminal. If the cone pulls inwards, the battery + is on the speaker - terminal.

[Barry]

It won't matter if both speakers are of the wrong polarity (i.e 'suck' instead of 'blow'), as in your situation the absolute polarity will make no difference. But if one speak is in phase and the other is out of phase, the stereo image will not be stable and it will sound as if there is a "big hole in the middle".

I would imagine the wiring of the terminal blocks on the drive units are consistent, so wire the two of them up in the same way.

If you do get it wrong - I'm sure the cows won't mind too much.

[Oddball]

Thanks men !!!

I couldnt recall if it might damage anything long term if polarity was out !!
I am sure the cows wont mind -its more to keep my Mrs happy listening to Enya ,or Helen Readdy !

Or the news or whatever the madwoman puts on (Alexa I mean )

[Lawrence001]

I'd use an AA battery. If the cone moves outwards, you have the battery + on the speaker + terminal. If the cone pulls inwards, the battery + is on the speaker - terminal.

If 1.5v is enough then maybe don't use a 9v battery that's just what someone once told me but they may have been wrong.

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[walpurgis]

Oh and if anybody is interested, the battery trick works backwards on Tannoys I've tested. The bass cone moves backwards when the battery + is on the speaker +!

[Lawrence001]

Happened to me once with some drivers with terminals marked red and black, maybe it's quite common.

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