Speaker wire panic

[canouan]

This question is going to mark me down as a total idiot, but can someone tell me how I connect my new speakers to my new amp using speaker wire? I've basically been given a 4-metre bit of this wire which comprises 4 lengths of wire inside a see-through plastic coating. Do I just expose the wire at both ends and connect to the amp and speakers? How many bits of wire go in which hole? Sorry about this but I've really never done anything like this before. I was expecting leads on the speakers with phono plugs on the end!

[vehelpfulguy]

Each single piece of wire has two individual cores running through it. You remove half an inch or so of the plastic cover from each core on each end, exposing the bare wire.

You attach one piece of wire (2 cores) to each speaker, one core to each terminal on the speaker.

The other end you connect to the amplifier, again one core to each connector.

The back of the amplifier should show L and R for left and right speaker, two connectors for each speaker.

The connectors are often shown in red and black. Make sure you connect the black connector wire on the speaker to the black connector wire on the amp or the speakers may be out-of-phase, giving a slightly fuzzy sound.

To help you often speaker wire has a black line running down the outside of the plastic, down one of the cores.

This is so you can identify the correct core to put on the corerect connector (red or black). It can go on either red or black, but as I said, must match up.

This is one of those things that is easy to do but difficult to explain, but I hope I have made it clear in the text above.

[vehelpfulguy]

To help here are some pictures.

Turn OFF all the equipment before you start.

You make the ends of the speaker wire look like this both ends
http://shop.sailnet.com/images/84-083.gif

You then connect one wire to the back of each speaker that may look something like this (note red and black)
http://electronicssuperstore.net/images/jbl-rm 10-back.jpg

Then you connect the wires into the back of the amplifier in connectors like this (yours may be slightly different)
http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/articles/ 2001/226/speaker-outputs.jpg

Again note the red and black. Make sure red goes to red and black goes to black on both speakers.

One connector on amp will be marked L for left speaker, the other R for right speaker.

Good luck

[canouan]

Thanks guys - really really helpful.

[The Cowboy]

"This question is going to mark me down as a total idiot".

You are nothing of the sort my friend. I was like you until I asked a friend the very same question. If we do not ask we will never learn. Hope your system is now working OK.

Cowboy.