moldreaker

Mistake, could use advice

I have very little skill or knowledge in this area, so please be patient, and don't assume I will understand the terms you use.

I'd like to set up speakers in other rooms, to listen to my computer music files.
I have a pair of inexpensive Cambridge Soundworks GCS300 speakers that came with my computer.

I salvaged a couple of speakers from a discarded home entertainment system in the trash, and planned to use
old speaker wire to splice them into one of the lines from the computer speakers. I've tested these old trash speakers, and I know for a fact that they do work.

I was first surprised when I cut one of the wires, to see that it wasn't just bare copper wire under the outer
insulation. There was also a second tube of plastic inside, surrounded by the copper....it appears to also be a copper line.

I'm figuring that if I also strip THAT, then the system won't work...I'm guessing this interior portion has to be kept insulated from the other wires.

Spliced all tothether, and nothing is working. Any advice in repairing the wire to the one now-useless computer speaker would be appreciated.

I'm guessing that I'm doing this wrong?

I'm guessing that what I need to do is get a cable that will hook the audio output of the computer to my stereo, and instead of splicing the computer speakers, splice into the stereo speakers. But I don't know what this cable would be called, or where to get one. Thanks for looking.

Robert_J

Re: Mistake, could use advice

Pictures would help. But it could be a lot of things. My first guess is that you are wiring all of the speakers in parallel and the final impedance is too low for your amp to drive.

To determine your odd speaker wire situation, I would take apart the speaker in question and see how it is wired internally. I think I have taken about every retail speaker I have ever owned just to see what was inside.

-Robert

Brandy S

Re: Mistake, could use advice

I guess you could call it coaxial speaker wire. Basically two wires in one, which makes it harder to splice into. The inside is positive, the outside negative, or vice versa. It's the kind of wire that was never meant to be cut, basically.

chuckg

Re: Mistake, could use advice

Yup...sounds like shielded wire to me. That is, coaxial wire that has one insulated conductor in the center, and the other conductor wrapped around it, all covered with more insulation.

There is nothing wrong with cutting it. Just cut back the outer jacket, then splay out the wire and twist it all together off to one side. Leave the inner insulation sticking out a bit (1/4 inch or so) and then strip it off and twist the inner conductor. Now you've got two separate conductors that act just like the wires in any other cable.

Well, that description probably doesn't help. Maybe you'll get it....

--ignore the man behind the curtain