can I just stick a battery to the wires and see which way the cone moves?

And whats the advantage or disadvantage of running subs in reverse polarity? Because on my headunit I have a setting that allows be to reverse the subs but I want to know what its for and what kind of sound difference its supposed to make?

 

Every speaker I've seen has been labeled...are these not? If not, which models are they, I'm sure someone else owns them and can verify which side is which.

 

9V battery trick works. If you hook it up with the + to + and - to - the sub should move towards you.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to run their subs in reversed polarity, I've tried it and thought it sounded bad. You can try it for yourself. With the subs out of phase you should get a huge hole or null at the crossover point where your mids and subs will be cancelling each other out. It will sound thin.

 

The only time you would want to reverse the polarity is if you mounted your subs facing into the box, which a lot of people are doing now to show off.

And yes the 9v trick works.

 

in most cases their are 2 differnt size terminals, the big is positive the small is negative, or they have colors on them red(hot) and black or white(negative).....