Stupid newbie question, but I can't figure it out..... (1 Viewer)

I am about to wire a pair of JBL N24 IIs to be my rear center channel for Dolby EX and DTS ES. My question is this....how do I do it? The receiver has one set of binding posts meant for one speaker, and I suppose using a generous helping of speaker wire and electrical tape I could do something really sloppy looking and maybe half-way decent sounding, but I figure since so many people do this there has to be a better, more professional looking way.

Any suggestions?

Nick,

My guess is your receiver is not prepared to take on both of those speakers in a 7.1 configuration, but rather just 6.1. If I were you, I'd wire just the one rear center speaker, and put the other in a closet until you eventually get a 7.1-ready receiver.

-Robb

Nick,

You have to wire the speakers in series to use two speakers off of one output. Wiring the speakers in parallel will almost certainly present a load that your receiver will balk at driving.

Take the Red/+ output of the receiver and connect it to the Red/+ input of the first speaker. Connect the black/- output of the first speaker to the Red/+ of the 2nd speaker. Connect the black/- output of the 2nd speaker to the black/- output of the receiver.

Wiring the speakers in series doubles the impedance seen by the receiver, which will effectively cut in half the output of your receiver. But you're doubling the number of speakers, which will double the acoustic output as well, leaving you in a break even position acoustically

Regards,

Nick, ... the following is a copy of the email I 'Replied' to you earlier this morning, basically confirming / agreeing w/John Kotches post above ...

====(email copy - edited for inbedded HTML codes & added image)

... is there any feasible way to wire them BOTH to the single rear center channel? Left rear Center - (NEG)

2) Left rear Center + (POS) > Right rear Center - (NEG)

3) Right rear Center + (POS) > AV REC rear Center + (POS)

For a diagram, go to this website (see Series Hookup) ...

NOTE: Series vs. Parallel:


- Hooking two N24II (8 ohm rated) together in "series" will equal an 16 ohm load, a very easy load for your AMP to handle.

- Hooking two N24II (8 ohm rated) together in "parallel" will equal an 4 ohm load, and if your Rear Channel AMP can handle this load, you may want to try it.

Have fun hooking them up and let me know how it goes!
====(end of email copy)

Phil

Click to expand...

Nick,

Wiring them in series will also help making it as "unsloppy" as it can .

I suppose the speakers are going to be rather close together. If they're not see the second paragraph.
Just use the normal double wire to go from your receiver to both speakers. Split the two wires a bit wider than normal, just enoug to connect one to the (red or + or whatever color) connection of one speaker and the other to blue (or - ot whatever other color) of the other speaker. Now connect a single wire between the yet-unused plugs of the two speakers.

If the speakers are going to be relatively wide apart, you can do it "neatly" as follows: bring the double wire from the receiver to one of the speakers (a) and then proceed to the other speaker (b). Connect the two wires to the last speaker (b). Now cut one of the two wires at the position of the first speaker (a). Split them a bit. Of the wire you just cut, connect the end coming from the other speaker (b) to the binding post on this speaker (a) with a different "color" (see above) than that same wire is already on at the far speaker (b). Connect the other end (coming from your receiver) to the other binding post of speaker (a).

Hope this was clear enough.
Good luck!

Cees

Great picture there Phil.

Radio Shack has a good selection of banana plugs that you can use to rig things together. Look at the dual-banana plugs (xxx-308). I used these under a couch to series/parallel wire 8 bass shakers. They also have the single bananas (xxx-306).

I use 2 of the Dual Bananas to get the signals to the rear of my couch and give me a connection point. Then I use the single bananas to 'flow' the signal through the bass shakers.

Phil,

You should add + / - indicators to the amp on your drawing so that it's perfectly clear what gets wired to what from that side.

Regards,

Nick, does your AVR have a pre-out for the rear surround? Before I got a true 7.1 receiver, I used my rear surround pre-out connected to a Y splitter, and ran two cables to the L/R analog inputs of a spare amp and powered my two rear surrounds that way. Worked like a charm.

While I just happened to have a spare high quality 2 channel Harman/Kardon amp lying around, you can do the same with a $70 Sherwood (or equivalent) 100 WPC stereo receiver. Potential sonic mis-match issues aside, I don't think the small rear surrounds in a high-passed configuration will place much of a demand on any amp, even an inexpensive stereo receiver.

Just a different twist instead of wiring in series.

Regards,

Ed

Phil,

Damn you! I still want you to fix their drawings

Regards,