"Jack3000" wrote in message
m...
This is a very simple electrical question, but the answer for which I
cannot locate because I know nothing about such matters.

I'd like to attach a speaker wire to a rca plug, but I am unsure
what's hot/positve and what's ground/negative.

1) The stereo wire I bought (at Lowe's) is a pair of wires attached to
each other: one wire postive, the other negative. Which is which? One
wire has writing on it which I've been told distingues one wire from
the other. Is that wire positive?

2) The rca plug has two places for the negative and postive wires to
be attached. One is in the center of the plug where it can be pinched
and soldered to the plug. And the other is a hole where the wire can
be threaded thru. Which is positive and which is negative: the center
pinch or the hole?

Generally, the center pin is positive, and the outer shell
of an RCA connector is negative.

HOWEVER! You have not provided enough information
to make any reliable suggestions regarding your question.

What equipment are you connecting to that uses an RCA
jack for speaker connections? Are you SURE that it is
a speaker-level output and not line-level?

You can use a 1.5v battery on the speaker wires to
establish which is positive and negative. OTOH, if
both sides are wired the same, it is unlikely to make
any discernable difference is the absolute polarity is
wrong.