Unmarked driver terminals

[tfoust]

The Goldwood 4028 drivers have no + or - markings. Does it not matter which is what or is there a secret handshake I’m not aware of?

[AntonZ]

With a woofer you can use a battery. I think 1.5V is enough. Connect - of the battery to one terminal on your driver. Now when you connect + from you battery to the other terminal on the driver, one would expect the woofer cone to move outward. Towards you if you are looking at the exterior side if you will. If it moves that way, the + terminal of the battery is connected to the + terminal of the speaker.

If the driver cone were to move inward upon connecting the second wire to the terminal then you have the wires reversed: the - pole of the battery is now connected to the + terminal of the driver.

Now you have found which terminal is +, which is -. Convention is you mark the + terminal of your driver red (or with a "+" character).

Visual demonstration:


Note: tweeters don't like this trick. To be used on woofers only.

[Seth]

The Goldwood 4028 drivers have no + or - markings. Does it not matter which is what or is there a secret handshake I’m not aware of?

After testing them as outlined in the plans, make sure they're all wired the same. Once the cab's assembled, play a sine wave at the crossover frequency and measure the spl with a free phone app. Switch the tweeter leads at the crossover and measure with the exact same volume settings from the exact same distance, if the SPL increases the original wiring was not right. If the SPL decreases, the original wiring was correct.