Weird RCA to speaker connection for multi room setup

Mike Nep · 01-14-2004, 12:04 PM

I recently moved into a new/used home and the in wall multi room speaker configuration jacks are unlike anything I've seen before. What it looks like the previous owner/installer did was, inside the wall from the speaker wires to the wall jack, run a positive wire to the signal side of the rca and the negative to the ground part of the rca. So what you see on the connection side is what seems to be a single jack for each speaker. Has anyone with install experience ever done it or seen it connected this way?

Wayne A. Pflughaupt · 01-14-2004, 07:25 PM

Are you saying the in-wall speaker wiring is terminated to RCA jacks on wall plates?

Mike Nep · 01-15-2004, 12:19 AM

Yes, the positive and negative speaker wire are connected ONE RCA, not two. Wierd isn't it?

Wayne A. Pflughaupt · 01-15-2004, 10:28 AM

It's definitely weird to use RCAs, but not to connect both (+) and (-) leads to a single connector. RCA's carry the (+) and
(-) signals of regular line-level feeds, so they can do the same with speaker-level. This allows the complete signal to be transfered with a single plug-in connector (although you'll be limited to using small-gauge speaker wire). Radio Shack actually sells some speaker wire terminated to RCAs (again, small gauge wire).

Yes, I know that in home audio we're used to seeing separate connections for speaker cabling, but using a single connector is actually very common in pro-audio, only they use 1/4" phone plugs with oversized barrels (the better to accomodate large-gauge wire), or Speakon connectors.

Still, you have the cabling in place - that's the good news. If you want to use it, you can easily swap out the RCAs for some binding posts.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt



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