Why are there TWO sets of red/black inputs on the back of my speakers??

AndyDJX

Hi folks; total noob here. I just got some of the polk RM40ts and am a little perplexed by something that is probably obvious. With ever speaker I've ever owned, it's been pretty simple: run the speaker wire from the receiver to the speaker, and as it splits in two, insert the black end to the black input and the red side to the red input.

How come there are FOUR total inputs on the back of these speakers? Two for black, two for red (or +/-)

Feel free to laugh at me for not knowing what's going on, as long as you help provide answer as well!

wallstreet

You can bi-wire the speakers for improved performance. Most folks just run two wires and leave the jumper installed. Make sense? And welcome to Club Polk!

AndyDJX

Hmmm... explain this to an idiot--I've just tried googling things and ended up reading about spades and bananas and wound up even more confused. I go into the electronics store and buy speaker cable. It splits into two parts; I put the copper wire stuff into the + and - on the back of my receiver. How could I run two? What's a jumper?

Thanks for the welcome! I definitely care enough about sound quaility to spend a lot on speakers/ headphones and the like but I am clearly not an audiophile in terms of my knowledge! I'm trying to learn though...

obieone

Just outta curiousity, what speakers did ya get? Don't get get all 'nuked out' over this hobby, it gets EXPENSIVE! But, to answer your question, you can go several routes: spades, banana plugs or just straight wire into the binding post.

J_Kennedy

If you want to use them "normally", just connect your speaker wire to one or the other of the red/black sets. I assume the R's have a red/black pair on the one on top of the other. You'll see a piece of metal between the red's and blacks and you'll leave that there. Just connect to one or the other.

They are there however, if you want to bi-amp. If you're receiver will let you, as mine will, and I'm in the middle of doing today, I'm going to bi-amp. In my case (Onkyo 805 that allows for it if you're not setting up a 7.1 system, you connect the rear surrounds and front mains from the receiver, the front speakers)

That means I'm going to connect the front speaker connection from the receiver to the top set of connections on the speaker; the high tone part of the speaker so that one channel will be dedicated to driving the highs. Next I'll connect the rear surround connection from the receiver to the lower set of connections on the speaker; the low tone part of the speaker so that one channel will be dedicated to driving the lows.

Doing that, I'll need to remove the metal jumper so each is fed the dedicated channel.

It's supposed to provide much better highs and lows. Of course I'll have to tell my receiver that I'm bi-amping and it'll make some changes.

Otherwise, if you have separate amps, you'd so the same thing using 1 channel for the highs and one for the lows. The 805 is just set up to bi-amp already.

You can also bi-wire which I'm not sure what the benefit is, but I'm not doing it so I haven't focused on learning what it is.

Ok, going back to drop the speaker wire down the walls where the FXi3's are mounted now, then I'm ready to move everything back into place and plug all the new stuff in!! Whoo whoooo.

danger boy

bi wiring is running two speaker wires from your receiver's speaker connections to the back of the Polk speaker.. one pair goes to the upper connections, and one pair goes to the bottom. all from the same receiver.. but YOU DON"T HAVE TO DO IT AT ALL either.. don't bother with it at this point and just enjoy your new Polks.

rainman31

You can run tweets on one amp and the mids or woofers on another amp for more power. Just remove the jumpers connecting the terminals

AndyDJX

the RM 40Ts. I am quickly learning how expensive all of this is! I was able to get an amazing deal on the RM40s....but then I realized my old center and surround weren't up to snuff and had to replace those with speakers from the same series. yikes.

Okay, so I'm learning a little more here. I have google imaged spade and banana plugs and sort of see how they work. I still don't get how when my receiver only has one red and one black output for each front speaker, how I end up with being able to plug in two black and two red inputs into the speakers.

Does anyone reccomend one over the other-- wire, spade or banana?

danger boy

banana's make connections easier on both the receiver and speakers

J_Kennedy

I'm using wire on the binding post for the speaker, but I'm using banana plugs o the receiver and for a wall jack for the speakers that I'm running wire for. It's probably just a matter of installation preference. Using the binding posts on each end is certainly much simpler.

seeclear

J_Kennedy wrote: »

You'll see a piece of metal between the red's and blacks and you'll leave that there. Just connect to one or the other.

The tweeter is wired internally to one set of posts and the Mid/woof is wired internally to the other set. The piece of metal that JK mentions above is the "jumper", and carries the signal from one set of posts to the other if you are just running one set of cable to the speakers. Not all receivers support bi-amping, so it would be useful to know what receiver you have before commenting further whether you have that option. But you definitely don't have to bi-amp. Just don't bi-amp and leave the jumpers in place!

You mention only having one set of connections on the receiver for the fronts, and what some receivers will allow you to do is use the rear surround channel to bi-amp the fronts, but you have to change the settings in the receiver's setup so it knows you are doing that. Hope this helps, stick around here, you will learn a lot and end up wanting to spend lots more money on your equipment!:eek::D

J_Kennedy

seeclear wrote: »

The tweeter is wired internally to one set of posts and the Mid/woof is wired internally to the other set. The piece of metal that JK mentions above is the "jumper", and carries the signal from one set of posts to the other if you are just running one set of cable to the speakers. Not all receivers support bi-amping, so it would be useful to know what receiver you have before commenting further whether you have that option. But you definitely don't have to bi-amp. Just don't bi-amp and leave the jumpers in place!

You mention only having one set of connections on the receiver for the fronts, and what some receivers will allow you to do is use the rear surround channel to bi-amp the fronts, but you have to change the settings in the receiver's setup so it knows you are doing that. Hope this helps, stick around here, you will learn a lot and end up wanting to spend lots more money on your equipment!:eek::D

Exactly, and my Onkyo 805 does just that. Even label the rear surrounds as (bi-amp) so I went in and made one simple change and viola!

jayman_1975

bi-wiring is possible as well by simply running 2 sets of wires to each speaker. Both connected on the receiver to the same posts, but on the speaker they split and one set goes to the highs and one to the lows. You would remove the "jumper" if you were to do this. Whether or not there is a difference in sound by bi-wiring is totally up to you. We have pummeled that issue into mince-meat on this forum and still haven't come to a conclusion.

Bill Ayotte

A picture is worth a thousand words.....The first picture is just a picture of the back of my bookshelves, I am pretty sure yours look similar. I have bananas plugged up into the lower set of inputs...

The second pic is kinda crappy, sorry it's kinda early for me. It has a little more detail. you can see the HF and LF labels on the backplate. High Frequency and Low Frequency. The metal plate you see is the "jumper plate", some people use a small run of speaker wire between them, I don't feel like making one at this point. You don't need to use both sets, but they do have to be connected in some way. Most companies recommend you connect your wires up to the LF inputs.

Gaara

Those aren't Eichmanns bananas are they?

Bill Ayotte

Gaara wrote: »

Those aren't Eichmanns bananas are they?

Yes they are. They were holy **** expensive for plastic bananas, but they plug up real nice, and are all kinds of easy to solder....I couldn't be happier with them.

Gaara

Bill Ayotte wrote: »

Yes they are. They were holy **** expensive for plastic bananas, but they plug up real nice, and are all kinds of easy to solder....I couldn't be happier with them.

I was looking at those a while back and ended up with Kimber Postmasters. Thanks for the info.

joey_halen2000

This is my amp here, and I just want to clarify how if I was to bi-wire it. So for my tower speakers (RTiA7) I would connect the bottom two spots on my speakers to where it says "Surround Back/Bi-Amp" on the back of the amp ? and this will give me better sound quality for movies or music or both ? I'm really new to setting these things up but recently bought myself what I think is a pretty nice setup :

Yamaha HTR6190 Receiver
Polk Audio RTiA7 Towers
Polk Audio CSiA6 Center
Polk Audio RTiA3 Surrounds
Velodyne 12" Sub

Bill Ayotte

joey_halen2000 wrote: »

This is my amp here, and I just want to clarify how if I was to bi-wire it. So for my tower speakers (RTiA7) I would connect the bottom two spots on my speakers to where it says "Surround Back/Bi-Amp" on the back of the amp ? and this will give me better sound quality for movies or music or both ? I'm really new to setting these things up but recently bought myself what I think is a pretty nice setup :

Yamaha HTR6190 Receiver
Polk Audio RTiA7 Towers
Polk Audio CSiA6 Center
Polk Audio RTiA3 Surrounds
Velodyne 12" Sub

That is a pretty nice setup, I don't know if HF of LF is on the bottom of the new RTis, but I would hook the front channels into the LFs and the "bi-amp" channels into the HF...I couldn't tell you if there will be an improvement in SQ for that receiver, but I know there was a pretty big improvement when I bi-amped a set of speakers with 2 separate amps in my setup....

lockmart

moved

lockmart

moved

J_Kennedy

Onkyo says use front channel for HF and rear surround channels for LF and the rear surround out's are labeled as such.

I assume RTi8's are HI on top and LF on bottom?

kliewerville

Hey Guys.....so i recently bought a new receiver pioneer vsx934 but it pushes about half the power my old yamaha pushed.....ive never needed an amp but am looking into 1. Now my towers are 8ohm and bookshelfs are 6 ohm in which this reciever pushes twice as much on 6 ohm so all i need ampd is my towers. Can i run the amp to one set of plugs on my Signature S55's and the other set just to my reciever? Trying to figure out exactly what i need to get to make this thing atleast get 150w p front channel. Thanks.

VR3

That receiver does not have pre outs, will not work with an external amp

kliewerville

So what are my options? It says something about connecting a pre amp main to zone B connections? Ive never used a home amp so pretty much a green horn in this dept. Would Bi amping my fronts be good enough? Thanks

txcoastal1

Bi amping will not increase power needed. You need a receiver with preamp outputs and then add an amp

Zone B will not work either

kliewerville

Ok so the whole bluetooth amplifiers with a bluetooth enabled receiver wont work either?

txcoastal1

Post up an example
If you are running a 5.1 home theater setup I doubt it would decode properly

By the time you start investing into something like that you're probably at least 1/2 way to buying a receiver with preamp outputs

kliewerville

Well I have a reciever now with preamp outs but it pushes 160w/ per channel which is great...but its an older yamaha so i wanted a newer receiver with better options etc so i saw that vsx 934 for 120$ and on the pioneer site they are selling it for $699 so i jumped on it thinking i could just get an amp to push more to my front L/R..... Didnt know you needed certain things tho, i thought you just connected audio out to the amp input and the amp pushed the power. And then i see amps that are apparently bluetooth and that receiver is blutooth so i didnt know if that would evwn work....??

J_Kennedy

It's typically poor etiquette to bump old threads, but 12 years old? This has to be a record.

And it's not even the same topic.

mhardy6647

I am still wondering about equipment pushing watts...