Speaker wire polarity

[JoeJoe]

I have this cool speaker wire -- Jameson 16AWG Speaker Cable one of the cables is silver colored and other is copper colored, silver one have a stripe. I wanna connect this to an 1/4″ TRS jack and have music in another room. What is the polarity of the TRS? As an electrician, I'm guessing sleeve is negative and others are positives? So both of them uses the same negative. Is there anything wrong with using a mono cable for all 3 terminals, I mean negative end to sleeve and positive end of the cable to both tip and the ring?

 

[firechief]

TRS = tip, ring, sleave? is this correct. Not a common terminology for hi-fi croud. More for telephone croud. We need the brands and models of the equipment being connected, and some one can give you the correct connection.
Good Day

 

[Cal Weldon]

Yes usually tip and ring are + and sleeve is -

Yes the - is common

Nothing wrong with your way of wiring

You have stereo plugs, you need only mono but they will work either way. You need not connect the ring part if you are plugging into a mono receptacle

 

[AndrewT]

TRS plugs short the socket as the plug is removed and inserted.
Omitting the R (ring) connection may avoid the shorting of the socket.
Test using a continuity meter before you blow up your amplifier.

 

[Cal Weldon]

From Wiki:

* If a two-conductor plug of the same size is connected to a three-conductor socket, the result is that the ring (right channel) of the socket is grounded. This property is deliberately used in several applications, see "tip ring sleeve", below. However, grounding one channel may also be dangerous to the equipment if the result is to short circuit the output of the right channel amplifier. In any case, any signal from the right channel is naturally lost.

* If a three-conductor plug is connected to a two-conductor socket, normally the result is to leave the ring of the plug unconnected (open circuit). In the days of vacuum tubes this was also potentially dangerous to equipment but most solid state devices tolerate this condition well. A 3-conductor socket could be wired as an unbalanced mono socket to ground the ring in this situation, but the more conventional wiring is to leave the ring unconnected, exactly simulating a mono socket.

 

[Enzo]

And we don't know what your amp is. Not all amps have a common ground shared between channels. SO connecting the negative terminals together in those amps could cause damage.

I don't know if that happens very often in consumer audio, I come from pro audio. I know car stareo many times has a bridged output configuration.