What size wire for RM 6750s?

Swede

Hooking up my H+K receiver to a set of RM 6750s. Based on recommendations in Club Polk's education site, I went with 14 ga wire but have just discovered that it's a bit too big in diameter for the spring clips on the back of the 6750 speakers. Any thoughts on how I can thread the wire through the clips or make the spring clip openings bigger? I only have one run (maybe two) that's much longer than 25', so wondering if I should opt for 16 ga wire instead.

Thanks!

McLoki

You can use banana plugs if you would like.

The easier and much cheaper method would be to bend down a couple of strands from the end where it goes into the speakers (effectively making the end of the strand where it goes into the speaker 16ga.) Just cut off the strands that you bent back, twist the remaining strands together and put it back in the speaker and lock everything down.

This would be a better solution that making an entire run of 16 or 18ga. in my opinion.

Michael

Swede

Thanks for the reply, Michael. Sounds like the easiest option is to bend the ends of the wires to make the 14 ga fit, but would there be any noticeable loss of signal quality with this approach?

If I went with banana clips, can I find the male and female adapters at the average Radio Shack?

Thanks,
Mark

McLoki

Banana plugs are always male. The female end is already built into your speakers and reciever.

For your speakers - you have to unscrew the nut (speaker terminal) all the way off and remove a little plastic plug. Then screw the nut back on.

For your reciever, it just plugs into the end of the speaker terminals.

As far as loss in sound quality by just bending the wires - no, there will not be any. Once you bend enough for the wire to fit into the speaker terminal though - make sure you cut off the excess wire. You do not want even one strand to touch the opposite terminal. If it does - it can blow your amp. (i.e. - make sure your AVR is off or the speaker wires are not connected to the AVR while you are doing this) It is not dangerous to do or anything, but you DO NOT want to cause a short by having your speaker wires touch in any way, shape or form.

If it was me, I would just strip the ends. If you disconnect speakers and hook up others often - the convienence may be worth the expese of adding bananna plugs.

I purchased GLS plugs off of E-Bay and were happy with them. I have never tried the ones from Radio Shack so no opinion there....

Michael

mantis

Swede wrote: »

Hooking up my H+K receiver to a set of RM 6750s. Based on recommendations in Club Polk's education site, I went with 14 ga wire but have just discovered that it's a bit too big in diameter for the spring clips on the back of the 6750 speakers. Any thoughts on how I can thread the wire through the clips or make the spring clip openings bigger? I only have one run (maybe two) that's much longer than 25', so wondering if I should opt for 16 ga wire instead.

Thanks!

Sounds to me like you need Pin connectors. They are designed to work with Spring clip connectors. Radio shack has em.

Dan

You should have gone with 16g wire. You didn't need 14g with those speakers. but it's cool the Pins will work fine

Swede

Thanks all. Sounds like pin connectors may be the way to go in this case.

blast8180

Here is a good source for most speaker wire questions

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

Lawrence Grand

For what it's worth, Lowes is a great place for speaker wire. A lot less expensive than electronics stores and they have a good selection of sizes.
LG