Hooking up speaker wires...
wcostin
Posts: 25
I was wondering if others have used any of the speaker wire accessories on the market. I was always taught years ago that as far as hooking up speakers, that the best way was a wire directly from receiver to speaker, nothing else. However, I see all of these "twist crimp connectors" and such on the market. Do they work well? When I finally do mount my new Polk RM6200's, I was thinking of installing wall jacks and then plugging a wire from the speaker into the wall jack and from the receiver to the wall jack...would I be having too many connections?
Please give advice.
Thanks,
Wayne
Please give advice.
Thanks,
Wayne
Post edited by wcostin on
Comments
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Bare wire it. Or, banana plug it. Or, solder some tin onto the ends of your bare wire (OUCH!) and use it that way.
The best connection is the most direct connection.
MC -
Many will tell you to use plugs etc...so you dont get any stray wires shorting out anything... I say its hoggwash! I've been using bare wire in home/car for 25yrs in this hobbie and have never used anything...at home..only few spade connectors in the car. If your carefull... then the shorting will never happen. some will say that the plugs will helps stop oxidation on the wires.. hoggwash again.. most people dont let their stuff alone long enough for this too hapen.. I dont know about any one else...but I always trim my wires whenever I re-connct them...
anyway.. you can use plugs if you want..its just not necessary.. If you can solder...tinting the ends is about the best way to do it
good luck.. thomas a.:D -
Hey TrappedUnderIce, what does soldering do? Do you solder the actual speaker wire to the terminal? Thanks.
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I think you would solder the ends of the speaker wire, so that the speaker wire cannot fray itself senseless.
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Oh oh oh! That would make much more sense. Ahhh I just use bananna plugs on my receiver and bare wire for the speakers.
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yes.. tining would be exactly that... soldering the tips so you dont get frey wires...
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Thanks for the advice.
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Actually, you use pure silver solder on the tips for a better connection, as silver is a great soft metal that conducts very well.
john -
...course if you're using pure silver solder,
(don't let your wife know you're melting down the tableware) you'll want to leave the hood off your car, so your buds can admire your handy work.
gotta love Irish coffee,
yields whole new insights
-luc -
heh heh heh
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Bare wire all the way. I have spent like a $100 bucks on connectors and such. They frey the wires even more --cut them--pop off-- crap like that. And these are the expensive monster 24k gold stuff. Only bare wire for me. 2cents
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I thought I was just cheap and logical. In my opinion connectors will add more resistance than down sizing speaker wire by 2AWG. My whole system of 7 speakers is bare wired. I recently got some pin connectors for X-Mas. I'll use these as my 2 sets of mains are older.
On the back of my receiver, center & rears, I have the wires going into the banana plug hole, coming out the hole and wrapped around the post. I think this gives me the most surface contact ant they aren't gonna come loose.
Some people say solder may be bad as this introduces dissimilar metals. Of course these people are manufacturers of non-soldered cables, so take it as you will. I think that if it's quality solder it should work well. The last time I looked in one of my components I saw a whole lot of solder, not little binding posts with tiny screws.Make it Funky!
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Dissimilar metals? Heh heh, that's interesting, gold and silver are both consitered 'noble' metals, and excellent conductors. These companies couple copper with gold, and some people even but straight silver wire, that can have gold connectors, so by assosiation, how is coupling silver with copper any different. Ahhhh, they just want you to buy their expensive 24K plugs. Bare back it, man!
john -
How about using di-electric grease on the wire ends to prevent oxidation?
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I never heard of that, sounds interesting, but grease seems messy!
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I use Caig ProGold on all my interconnects and speaker connections on my audio and HT systems.
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Di-elerctric grease is used by companys such as UPS on their trucks. Normaly it is a clear grease but it could mess up your carpet if you were not carefull!
