Total noob at home theater hookup (1 Viewer)

[Tim 13]

Okay, try to bear with me, because it's confusing as sin.
A couple of years ago, I bought a set of Coby 5.1 speakers, model number CS-P94, which are no longer available. They have the standard gray and black wires that go into the red and black inputs on the speakers themselves. Those wires narrow down to a single black wire, that connects to any of the input ports, Center, Front Left, Front Right, Rear Left, and Rear Right. From there, the circuit board on the back outputs to its own color-coded system, which is beige, green, and black, and the three ports are designated for Front Left and Front Right, Rear Left and Rear Right, and Center and Subwoofer. I'm getting a damn headache just thinking about it.
Now then; as a gift, I just got an A/V receiver, Yamaha, model HTR-3063. This one has HDMI 4 in/1 out, and a bunch of other crap connections I don't need because I only have HDMI devices.
My issue is that I can't seem to connect the speakers to the receiver correctly, because it seems that the connections that my speakers put out are totally unfamiliar to my receiver. I called the Geek Squad, and they wanted to charge me $160 to help me hook it up over the phone; PLEASE give me an alternative to that, that doesn't involve me flushing my speakers and my receiver down the toilet, which I'm this close to doing anyway. H E L P !
-Tim
Edit: Also, I forgot to mention; the three oddly-colored plugs from the speakers, the beige, green, and black; they are all Y-connectors that output to red and white cables.

I've connected those three Y-connectors to the three ports that say, "Audio 1," "Audio 2," and "Audio Out," which are to the left of the subwoofer port, if you can see that in the picture, but as expected, the result was dead silence. I didn't think it would work, but given the setup of the speakers, I saw no other way for it all to work, outside of buying new cables, which, I don't want to do, but am willing to do if I have to; I just need to know what else I'd need to buy, if not an entirely new speaker set, because obviously, these speakers are outdated and pretty crummy. Still so, I'd like to use these for the time being, because I am not a rich person. lol
-Tim

 

[Al.Anderson]

The Coby's are computer speakers. They are not intended for a standard receiver. Also, they are 4 ohms, so they would like cause your new receiver to shut down, or worse.
If you want to make use of them until you get standard speakers, you could plug them into the headphone jack. (You may need an adaptor.)

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Hi, Tim, welcome to HTF!

 

[Tim 13]

Hi, Tim, welcome to HTF!

Thank you!

The Coby's are computer speakers. They are not intended for a standard receiver. Also, they are 4 ohms, so they would like cause your new receiver to shut down, or worse.
If you want to make use of them until you get standard speakers, you could plug them into the headphone jack. (You may need an adaptor.)

F***! Now, if I plug them into the headphone jack, that will only give me two channels of sound, and not the five; right?

 

[Jerome Grate]

Hello Tim 13,
From what I can see from the instruction manual I was able to pull up, I think you only option is to use speaker wire with the satellite speakers and hook them directly to the Yamaha. Then connect your sub, using the G9 cord provided, into the sub out of the receiver with a miniplug to rca connector. The bass will channel to the sub. the 8 ohm impedence out into 4 ohm speaker should be fine as long as you are not cranking the volume to earth shattering levels. This is by all means is a temporary fix until you get something better.

 

[Tim 13]

Actually, a friend has already given me a similar suggestion. Behold!
http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Console-Adapter-Convert-Single-Pc/dp/B0006U3ACY
I'm aware that I lose out on true 5.1 while I'm using this, but as long as it works, it's cool by me, just until I get a set of real speakers.
Thank you!
-Tim

 

[Jerome Grate]

My suggestion will give you true 5.1 surround from the receiver when you hook the speakers up to the speaker terminals. The adapter you have in your post will allow you to use the analog portion of the receiver. Connecting the speakers directly to the receiver like any other speakers will.

 

[Tim 13]

Okay, so I buy speaker wire, and jimmy-rig the speakers directly to the receiver, right? You confused me a little bit with the G9 cord... can you give me links to what you're referring to? And also, once I get this G9 cord and hook it up to the sub-out of the receiver by the miniplug to RCA, where do the two RCA connections go on the subwoofer? And finally, the speaker wire thing is a bit scary to me. I'm not sure if I'd be buying the right thing, or the right length or gauge... do you think you could just clue me in as to which wire to buy? Because I really want to try this.
Also, thank you to the millionth power for helping me set this up, I really appreciate it.
-Tim

 

[Jerome Grate]

No problem Tim, I am glad to help. The G9 cord I referred to should have come with the speaker system; however, with the set up I am suggesting, you will only need it to plug the sub directly to your receiver. Since you are using the Coby speaker system, you can pick up16 or 18 gauge speaker wire for all the speakers. the attached link is for the manual for your speaker system. It refers to the G9 cord I was speaking about. If you still have this cord, this is the cord you will need to attach a RCA adapter to the end and plug into the sub out of your receiver.

 

[Jerome Grate]

http://www.cobyusa.com/files/manuals/CSP94_MN.pdf

 

[Tim 13]

It seems as though the G9 cord you're talking about actually did not come with the speaker set; they talk about it a lot, but the only G9-like cable I seem to have is the Y-adapter that allows a G9 input and outputs to a set of RCA cables. If I'm wrong, I totally concede, but that manual is heiroglyphical, and honestly, in the hook-up diagram, I don't even see where they use those adapters.
And beyond that, if I do find the G9 cable or manage to track one down on the internet, I'm very confuzzled as to which input on the back of the sub would be the source of the wire whose destination is the sub-out port on the receiver.
If you zoom the diagram in to 300 percent, you can see the labels for the plugs on the back of the sub:
INPUT:
L,R
SL,SR
C,SUB
OUTPUT:
L
R
SL
SR
C
The only one labeled "SUB" is an input, which is wrong, isn't it? Since the speaker is not inputting any sound to the receiver? This thing has me so
-Tim

 

[Jerome Grate]

I looked at the manual at 800% and I see what you mean. Try this, hook up your speakers directly to the receiver for 5 channels, then obtain a mini plug with an rca connector at the end. Plug the rca plug end to the sub-woofer out of the receiver and insert the mini plug end into the c/sw input of the sub in the back. The bass will be channeled to the sub this way. Let us know if worked.

 

[Tim 13]

I'm sorry to say, you've lost me a bit... Is this what you're telling me to get?

-Tim

 

[Tim 13]

I'm sorry to say, you've lost me a bit... Is this what you're telling me to get?

-Tim

 

[Tim 13]

I'm afraid you've lost me a bit... is this what you're telling me to get?

-Tim

 

[Tim 13]

Ignore that. I did a little bit of research and this is my best guess as to what you might be referring to:

That seems to be what you're talking about, except I have another problem; the sub out port won't seem to accept the 3.5mm cable. If you're talking about something else, then my apologies... still need a little help but I'm almost there.
-Tim

 

[Jerome Grate]

The plug above is what should work. It is available at Audiogear.com for about $5.00.

 

[Tim 13]

Hey Jerome,
Before you made your suggestion, I jumped the gun a bit and ordered some supplies off of Amazon that I thought would work.
Basically, I have about a two-foot-long 3.5mm cable, and that would be what would go into the sub out of the subwoofer. But, as I said, the subwoofer jack on the receiver isn't big enough to accept a 3.5mm plug, so I went and made some mistakes. Firstly, I hooked that cable up to an RCA splitter.
Basically, this is what came with the speakers:

Then I hooked the two RCA cables into an adaptor:

And here was my mistake. Then, for the adaptor, I got a 3.5mm female to 2.5mm male plug:

It seemed good on paper, but in fact, the 2.5mm male plug is too small for the subwoofer input on the receiver. So, I'm really at my wit's end. If you still say that the item you showed me is the answer to my problems, then I'll order it and try to get back into the groove, but for now, I can't figure out what actually fits into that input.
For now, my speakers are running in stereo thanks to this little piece of crap:

But I am aware that that does not issue true 5.1 surround sound, so I'm anxious to get off of that as soon as I can. Please let me know if you have any more suggestions.
-Tim

 

[Tim 13]

Hey Jerome,
Before you made your suggestion, I jumped the gun a bit and ordered some supplies off of Amazon that I thought would work.
Basically, I have about a two-foot-long 3.5mm cable, and that would be what would go into the sub out of the subwoofer. But, as I said, the subwoofer jack on the receiver isn't big enough to accept a 3.5mm plug, so I went and made some mistakes. Firstly, I hooked that cable up to an RCA splitter.
Basically, this is what came with the speakers:

Then I hooked the two RCA cables into an adaptor:

And here was my mistake. Then, for the adaptor, I got a 3.5mm female to 2.5mm male plug:

It seemed good on paper, but in fact, the 2.5mm male plug is too small for the subwoofer input on the receiver. So, I'm really at my wit's end. If you still say that the item you showed me is the answer to my problems, then I'll order it and try to get back into the groove, but for now, I can't figure out what actually fits into that input.
For now, my speakers are running in stereo thanks to this little piece of crap:

But I am aware that that does not issue true 5.1 surround sound, so I'm anxious to get off of that as soon as I can. Please let me know if you have any more suggestions.
-Tim

 

[Tim 13]

Hey Jerome,
Before you made your suggestion, I jumped the gun a bit and ordered some supplies off of Amazon that I thought would work.
Basically, I have about a two-foot-long 3.5mm cable, and that would be what would go into the sub out of the subwoofer. But, as I said, the subwoofer jack on the receiver isn't big enough to accept a 3.5mm plug, so I went and made some mistakes. Firstly, I hooked that cable up to an RCA splitter.
Basically, this is what came with the speakers:

Then I hooked the two RCA cables into an adaptor:

And here was my mistake. Then, for the adaptor, I got a 3.5mm female to 2.5mm male plug:

It seemed good on paper, but in fact, the 2.5mm male plug is too small for the subwoofer input on the receiver. So, I'm really at my wit's end. If you still say that the item you showed me is the answer to my problems, then I'll order it and try to get back into the groove, but for now, I can't figure out what actually fits into that input.
For now, my speakers are running in stereo thanks to this little piece of crap:

But I am aware that that does not issue true 5.1 surround sound, so I'm anxious to get off of that as soon as I can. Please let me know if you have any more suggestions.
-Tim