i recently purchased a creative labs dtt3500 computer theatre speaker set. i know it's for the computer but the question is more pertinent to the home theatre aspect of the speakers

as i was unwrapping the amp to speaker wires, the little red rubber loop that goes around the wire to distinguish red from black fell off. i immediately freaked out because i was just staring at 2 black wires in my hand. my question is how do you distinguish which wire is which and do it matter if you can't

and a bonus question i guess could be why weren't the wires painted differently like home theatre wires?!

The speaker wires do need to be wired properly. If you reverse the wiring, you'll still get sound, but it'll be 180 degrees out of phase from what it's supposed to be. If there's no way to figure out which is which from carefully following the cable from the marked end to the unmarked end, then your best bet is to use a multi-tester with a continuity checker or an ohm meter.

there are no markings whatsoever on the wires other than the removable red loop. how would i go about checking it with an ohm meter

Avia has tests for proper speaker phase adjustment.

A simple continuity check with an ohm meter: set your ohm meter to any resistance setting. If you touch the probes together the meter should register a low resistance. (If not, the meter batteries may be dead.) Touch the probes to the ends of a wire. If it gives a fairly low resistance, the ends are part of the same wire. If it gives a very high resistance or doesn't register at all, the ends are not part of the same wire.

A continuity check like this won't be helpful if there are no markings to show which wire is supposed to be "red" (or "plus") on each speaker.

the markings are present but just misplaced (or i think, there's a 50-50 chance) can i use the continuity check to find the wire and then mark it with the red loop

You don't have to worry about which wire was originally what color. To properly wire the speaker, you just need to make sure that one wire goes from the red terminal of your receiver/amp to the red terminal of your speaker and the other wire goes from the black terminal of your receiver/amp to the black terminal of the speaker.

If you have an ohm meter, just get something to mark your wires (a sharpie pen, electrical tape, etc.), do a continuity check like lizard described and then mark that wire on both ends as black.

actually the wires merge into one rca input so do i just run the continuity check on the exposed end of the wires

Oh, okay, now the confusion makes more sense.

The rca connector is a coaxial connector so the center pin is the end of one wire and the ring around it is the end of the other. So when you test it, just make sure you're only touching the lead to one or the other.

If the marker on the other speaker cable hasn't come off, then just test that one to figure out what the correct polarities should be and then set the unmarked cable to match that.