Im converting my garage and want to have the ducts and cabling in place for a future hifi setup. This is probably really stupud, but regular speakers are 2 wires, im presuming this can be cabled to a male phono plug? i would presume that thats obvious, however id like to know before spending money ducting and cabling the conversion just in case Cheers guys, or if you have any other ideas on how this should be done i would appreciate it. Basically im thinking female phono sockets at the front of the garage( where the garage door currently is ) and female at he back( where i intend to have a hifi system ) and just plug and play lol
I think you'd have to make one - either by soldering a phono lead onto some speaker cable, or chopping a beefy phono lead in half. It should work, although I'm not sure you'd be able to use sufficiently beefy cable. Maybe use Speakon connectors? They're more fun anyway
There are some RCA plugs that you can buy that are ready for speaker use. They usually are sold in "single" pairs where a single RCA jack has its two wires pre-split and insulated for you--they are often made of a heavier gauge wire. You have the same thing in a normal RCA jack but each jack is double insulated since they are carrying two wires--so either way will work you would just need to cut the ends off and strip the insulation on the latter. I believe the prong is positive and the shroud is negative. I did this last night while testing a receiver that I had in my garage. The speaker outputs are RCA and I had to "make my own." I think your second idea is better though.
Just build a set of cables or a converter http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103423 and some good 12-16g wire. Or http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103980&http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=project%20box&origkw=Project%20box&sr=1 If you make a box, I would add multiple types of outputs. IE have a set of RCA(Phono Plugs) and a spring terminal for speakers; and/or banana plugs like someone suggested.
sorry for not replying, and thanks everyone for your input, i was trying to get other stuff organised for the conversion before returning to this. I cant reply to everyone, but the below includes most of what everyone said. Bananna plugs look good, simply because theyre not as heavy duty wiring as phono leads, which im guessing is better as surely phono lead wiring would reduce the overall power if traveling over say 7 metres? agree/disagree? im still open to regular RCA cabling if theres no difference? All solutions seem to involve creating a jack for the speaker wires, bananna or RCA, which is fine( kinda stupid that its not a standard on the input of hifi's etc. ) Also would regular wiring be ok or do i need to have some souped up crap? i dont expect the audio to be the best ever but i hope it will be good so i'd love to know if i should use any specific wiring? Also was just thinking of wiring for a 5.1 setup, any point going higher? im not that crazy about the audio and would expect 5.1 to be fine, but thoughts? Thanks again for the help, its very much appreciated.
"Phono" are RCA jacks. People used to call them phon leads because Phonographs were one of the first devices to use them. Technically though, they are RCA jacks.
Ah, it makes perfect "since" as RCA jacks used to be called "phono" leads/jacks all the time. I would say incorrect terminology mind you but the saying was quite common many years back and it is still used. If a person asked me if I had a set of phono leads/jacks and I would hand them a set of RCA cables. Considering a turntable was one of the earliest devices to be connected to an amplifer using RCA terminated cables. This is why some people called them phono leads, phono jacks or other terms related to the phonographs. The term is also why the OP said a "male Phono" plug...he just means an RCA jacks. Very common expression.
op i'm not sure what you want to do. you want to strip the rca jacks to be used as speaker wire or you want to use speaker wire with rca jacks? you can make your own rca jacks easily with 16 awg speaker wire or heavier if want but no point since 16 gauge is more then fine especially for rca jacks. i find no point either of stripping rca jacks as well since they usually use very thin 28awg copper wiring and that's not good for speaker use due to too much resistance. you need at least 16 gauge for speakers and 16 gauge wire is good up to 50ft.
ok ok, RCA jacks lol, but thanks for clearing that up. Basically im getting the garage converted, and i want it wired for 5.1. I dont have a 5.1 system at the moment but will get it in the next few months( i just bought the projector for the room ) Any speaker wires i have ever used are just like you say copper pairs( and im presuming its still the same ), however i want to have a wall socket and route that to the front of the room where the amp is, nice and tidy. In which case im trying to figure out what type of wall socket i could use and then wire a plug onto the speakers, e.g. bananna plug to wall socket taking a bananna plug. So basically if i get these - http://www.nexxia.co.uk/products.asp?section=Audio Wall Plates&category=Speaker Wall Plates and some bananna plugs and some wiring i should be good? For the wiring which would be best from here? - http://www.nexxia.co.uk/products.asp?section=Audio Video Cables&category=Audio Speaker Cable Id prefer to get all the stuff from the same site as it just makes it handier. Thanks again guys. I have seen others just leave the wires sticking out of the walls and i dont want that, so from the above im thinking i could use
yea banana connectors will work fine. for the wiring just copper is more then fine. silver doesn't make any difference. it's the gauge that matters the most. i don't see any listings on what gauge the wires are tho. they don't show it. if you need more then 50ft i would suggest 12awg to be more then safe. i also go a bit heavier myself then i need to just for self-insurance basically.
Get oxygen-free copper wire. It doesn't need to be monster cable. There are charts you can view online that show what wire size you should run. If you ever want to upgrade to high power equipment you will want thicker wire so plan for that as was suggested.
thanks guys, great feedback and appreciated ill do some research on the gauge for the cables nah man, id prefer a UK/Ireland online retailer as ill just get destroyed on postage costs from the US and probably some nutty import duty to boot.