Internal wiring on L100A is incorrect

[Hal]

Internal wiring on L100A is incorrect
Yes I am a newbie and a mechanical thinker.

A few years ago, I "cleaned up" my L100's with N100 x-overs. I cleaned and lubed the L-pads with DeOxit and installed new binding posts and 12 gauge wire. I suspicion that I did something wrong with one of the pair even though they sounded better than before (L-Pads I am pretty sure). I bought a test DVD and the two JBL’s sound partially out of phase with each other is why I think I screwed up. Reversing the leads doesn’t exactly clear it up either which makes me think that I tried to “fix something that wasn’t broke” inside and have possibly the mids out of phase.

I have the Schematics for the N100's and have read tons of information here, which I appreciate immensely. I may be under some wrong presuppositions regarding the wiring of speakers and JBL’s in particular.

My old assumptions:
RED= +
BLACK = -

Yet I know in house wiring that Black is hot and white is common.

Power flows from amp/receiver out the RED post and comes back to the black post. If I want to put a resister in series to attenuate (going from instructions), I put it on the +/RED side.

Capacitors can be wired either way like a resister; I am thinking this is wrong.

Now I question the basics and from reading here, I now understand the L100 have a different polarity from the “standard” up until sometime in the 80’s.

BEFOR I REBUILD MY N100 crossovers wrong, I would like to know these things please:

I am using Clarity Caps. They have a black lead and a red lead.
I have the parts express L-pads

I am looking at the L100A/N100 Schematic

The RED binding post connection show the reversed arrows (that I would think means return path and not positive).
This changes to a green wire on the solder strip of the N100 and goes to the RED binding on the 123A (Right?)
The Black Binding Post connection with forward arrows goes through to the Black binding on the 123A (Right?)
Would I still connect RED to RED and Black to Black from speaker to receiver? (I have later model other make speakers as my rears and they are red to red and black to black, it’s those arrows on the schematic have me scratching my head.)

I see that one end of the capacitors goes on the red input side and the other to terminal 3 on the L-pad. May I assume red to red and black to L-pad?

The Black side goes to terminal 1 and onto the LE5-2 Black? And the white from terminal 2 to RED?

For LE 25’s I know they were reversed at the L-pad and had terminals on them that allowed the hook up only one way, but I redid the wires and may have “corrected it”. SO Terminal 1 to Red side to the Male spade into the female socket on the LE25? And Black from terminal 2 to Female connector to the male terminal on the LE25??

I would appreciate someone helping me rearrange my assumptions correctly and my current thinking to proper thinking,

Thanks,

[Thom]

Audio is ac. This means current flows both ways. Even if it were dc it wouldn't matter where you put the resister. If you have a water tank and a pump and a hose that goes from the pump to the tank if you squeeze the hose with a pliers it will have the same effect no matter where you squeeze the hose. One must be careful as the water to electrical current analogy is a very rough one but in many cases it is very helpful. Also, although I don't know the caps you speak of, in normal terms all audio caps are nonpolarized and can be hooked up either way.
Now, before I get myself shot by the $100.00 a foot power cord mp3 listening crowd, I believe that in a wound cap the line tells you which lead is the inside foil and which line is the outside foil, and they may believe that their mp3's sound better hooked up one way than another. If so, I've killed enough wind mills and I don't care to fight. The red and black could just as easily be 1&2 or some other designation that lets you keep track of which is which. If one wire is in common between both outputs it will most likely be the black one. If one wire is grounded it will most likely be the black one. Neither of those things effect your speakers at all unless you plan on using a water pipe as one of your speaker leads (don't). You should however wire and connect both speakers the same unless you have one of those unusually shaped rooms and setups that actually call for the speakers to be hooked up out of phase in order for the sound to be in phase where you will be listening.
On houses the black and white do not mean + &- they mean hot and grounded. One lead has been intentionally grounded or they would both be possibly hot. You should work on motor homes. On all of the ac stuff the white wire is grounded or common. On the 12 volt DC stuff the black wire is ground and they do occur in the same place in places.
Current flows from - to +. Conventional current flow theory says current flows from + to -. I believe this is because this is what was believed for so many years and how things got labeled. You know that speed they told you that electricity travels at (speed of light, I believe.) Well the electrons don't travel that fast, Just the waves.
For those of you yawning or wondering just who the hell I think I am. It's been obvious from several recent posts that a lot of people who's contact with theory was that one of their uncles had once been in an electronics repair shop by accident. (The bar wasn't marked that well) are now putting their hands on stuff where they could at a minimum cause themselves anxiety and I don't care to speculate on a worse. No one with teaching skills popped up. (no question that would have been better) So I didn't see how this could hurt.

[Hal]

Thanks Thom!

[hjames]

Not sure how to delete?

Get everyone to move their reply to you to the OTHER thread - and have them delete their posts here.
Once the thread is empty, you can delete just your post. If not, just ask a Moderator to cut it for ya!

Have a nice one, and good luck with your wiring!!

[Hal]

hjames,
I moved my post to this entry, leaving the other empty. I went to edit and took everything out, but even thought the Edit/Delete button said delete, I could not find it as an option. It would not let me save a blank message.

Do you know how to delete?

Thanks!

[Zilch]

My old assumptions:
RED= +
BLACK = -

Yes, but this is AC, so it only designates phase polarity, which for many JBLs is the the inverse of industry standard.

Yet I know in house wiring that Black is hot and white is common.

Irrelevant.

Power flows from amp/receiver out the RED post and comes back to the black post. If I want to put a resister in series to attenuate (going from instructions), I put it on the +/RED side.

Also largely irrelevant.

Capacitors can be wired either way like a resister; I am thinking this is wrong.

It only really matters with polarized capacitors, such as standard electrolytics. Those used in crossovers are typically non-polarized, as, again, audio is AC.

Now I question the basics and from reading here, I now understand the L100 have a different polarity from the “standard” up until sometime in the 80’s.

Correct, with respect to the system, in comparison to JBL standard, but the more important consideration is that 123A-1 DRIVER is positive polarity, whereas 123A-3 is JBL standard negative. From the wiring below, it may be seen that most L100s conform to the industry standard polarity.

BEFOR I REBUILD MY N100 crossovers wrong, I would like to know these things please:

Fine. Read on.

I am using Clarity Caps. They have a black lead and a red lead.

Since they are non-polar film capacitors, thats only of interest to anal-retentive uber-geeks. Wire them the same way and pretend you care.

I have the parts express L-pads.

Fine. I use them all the time.

I am looking at the L100A/N100 Schematic

Fine. To be correct, if you have 123A-3 woofers, you should be looking at the L100A (Late) schematic. The schematics appear to be the same.

The RED binding post connection show the reversed arrows (that I would think means return path and not positive).

The arrows typically designate the sex of Faston connecters, where used. They have nothing to do with current flow, or positive and negative in the DC electrical sense.

This changes to a green wire on the solder strip of the N100 and goes to the RED binding on the 123A (Right?)

Correct.

The Black Binding Post connection with forward arrows goes through to the Black binding on the 123A (Right?)

Also correct.

Would I still connect RED to RED and Black to Black from speaker to receiver? (I have later model other make speakers as my rears and they are red to red and black to black, it’s those arrows on the schematic have me scratching my head.)

Yes. Since 123A-1 (assuming that's what woofers you have) is positive polarity (cone moves out when positive voltage is applied to the red terminal,) the system conforms with industy standard.

I see that one end of the capacitors goes on the red input side and the other to terminal 3 on the L-pad. May I assume red to red and black to L-pad?

If that's what you like, yes. It doesn't matter, as they are non-polar film capacitors. The important thing about L-Pads is to get the terminal numeric designations wired correctly. L-Pad terminal 1 goes to common, and terminal 3 is the "input," as shown on the schematic.

The Black side goes to terminal 1 and onto the LE5-2 Black? And the white from terminal 2 to RED?

Correct. Since LE5-2 is JBL standard negative polarity, it is out of absolute phase with the 123A-1 woofer.

For LE 25’s I know they were reversed at the L-pad and had terminals on them that allowed the hook up only one way, but I redid the wires and may have “corrected it”. SO Terminal 1 to Red side to the Male spade into the female socket on the LE25?

No. L-Pad terminal 1 connects to the input black side, but has a red wire from that point with a male faston to connect with the female on the tweeter. That's what the arrowhead on the red wire means.

And Black from terminal 2 to Female connector to the male terminal on the LE25??

Yes. Assuming LE25 is also JBL standard negative polarity (which I don't know for certain,) the tweeter is connected IN absolute phase with the 123A-1 woofer.

I would appreciate someone helping me rearrange my assumptions correctly and my current thinking to proper thinking,

Make an appreciative donation to the site if my advice works for you. It took nearly an hour to do....

[Hal]

Thanks Zilch!

I believe that I get it.

BTW, I am shaving down some Zilch plugs to fit also.

[Zilch]

I am shaving down some Zilch plugs to fit also.

Cool. Tell everybody how that works for you once you have an opportunity to listen for a bit, as well....

[Hal]

WILCO

TTFN (ta ta for now) gettin hungry.

[boputnam]

Make an appreciative donation to the site if my advice works for you. It took nearly an hour to do....

Wow, Zilchster! That was some reply, dood!

Makes ME wanna donate, too!

[Hal]

An update,

I have completed the 2 N100 crossover and Zilch's directions/corrections were very helpful. Thom's reply helpwd me get over some confusion also.

They sound very nice and the 2 L100's now sound very similar. When I took the foilcals off a couple of years ago, I put them in a safe place, so safe I haven't located them yet.

I bought them in 1976 from a USAF BX in Okinawa. I was out of the service and could only buy from the outlet and the 100's were returned items that had been repaired. Without the foilcals, I can't remember exactly whether they said A's or not.

Both had 123A-1's and LE5-2's, one had an LE25 and one had an LE25-4. They had N100 crossovers, one with cardboard color caps with N100 on them the other caps were orange with serial numbers. The one with the Orange caps has the plastic port and the one with the natural color caps had a cardboard tube. Very similar, but different to a degree. Now they have LE25-2's and new xovers, leaving the tubes the only difference that I can determine. Oh and yes I added another 1 inch of fiberglass matt on the back to see what that would do.

I haven't installed the Zilch plugs, but will once I trim them down a tad. And I made an appreciative contribution to the site as Zilch suggested.

Thanks!

[Steve Mac]

Current flows from - to +. Conventional current flow theory says current flows from + to -. I believe this is because this is what was believed for so many years and how things got labeled

Good post Thom...just to clear this up a bit:
It's simply a matter of assumption actually.
One could assume that electrons are moving but some refer to
"holes" moving. In effect the holes left when the electron moves.
When analyzing or coming up with the transfer function for a circuit,
it does not matter which method(holes or electrons) is used to solve
for the circuit using Kirchoffs or Norton's methods
...so long as the application of polarity remains consistent throughout.
But yes, electrons move from - to +.
I just never actually saw an electron.