What does the stripe mean in speaker wire?

the stripe on speaker wire is the NEGATIVE..

(so you have two wires running together) one with stripe one without, the one without connects to red, and the one with stripe connects to black!

P.S. It really doesn't matter, you could use the one with stripe for positive, as long as YOU know that it is so... (it's only marked with a stripe so that you can connect negative to negative and positive to positive without guessing which is which) most people use it for the ground side, but it's just there so you can differentiate the two sides, so you can get the same side on both the speaker, and the output. I always say red is right, and put the stripe on black. speakers are polar. it will be out of phase if you cross the wires, and not sound or work as well. Well its really there to help you to get your positive and negative the same on your receiver and your speakers you can either choose to use the stripe as positive or negative just make sure you have them the same on either end. in a few words its there so you don't have to trace all your wires to find out witch one is positive or negative The stripe diferentaties which wire is positive/ negative. In speaker cables it does not matter which one you assign to negative. However, generally folk say the striped one is negative/ black/ or the ground wire.

Basically just make sure you are connecting each end equally. So if striped is negative, then make sure both ends are going into your negative or black terminal on the speaker/ receiver.