Reddit reviews IEC 18 AWG 6' Speaker Wire Pair with RCA Males - Black/Red

So, based on that Montgomery Ward model number, I found this eBay listing. From the pictures, it appears to be an old style all-in-one system. The turntable is part of the receiver.

The speakers do indeed appear to be 6 ohms based on this picture.

So the only thing you need to do is get some speaker wire to hook the stereo system's "SPEAKERS" output to the inputs on the back of each speaker.

Like someone else said, you'll need cables that are RCA on one and bare wire on the other. By today's standards this is weird, but equipment of that age did use RCA connectors for speakers, so it does make sense.

So you want something like this pair of cables.

Or you could get RCA to speaker terminal adapters like this and then run regular (bare) speaker wire from those adapter to the back of the speakers. (And you can just go to a hardware store and get 18 gauge lamp cord for their electrical department and use that as speaker wire, if you want.)

EDIT: I forgot to mention. 6 ohm speakers with an amplifier that says 8 ohm minimum? Well, it's not a good combination but it's probably not too bad. Both numbers are just estimates. 4 ohm and 8 ohm speakers are the two most common types, and 6 is not as far off from 8. The risk is that your amp will overheat due to working too hard, but personally I don't think the risk is pretty small.

You'll need to stick some RCA males onto the ends of your speaker wire. You can buy them from Amazon, or if you're really lazy you can even buy lengths of speaker wire with them already attached.

Speaker wire. You push the little tabs and insert bare wire into the sockets.

It also depends on what's outputting the sound. You can get RCA to speaker wire cables.

Hey, I can see why you are confused. But the solution is pretty easy. All of these wires are only carrying electrical signals for each channel, nothing special. So the way I see it, you have two options.


The easier option would be to buy something like this. The second and possibly cheaper route would be to buy a RCA cable (you may already have some of those lying around) and strip it like this. Just make sure you connect the speakers in phase. If you are not sure about that, this webpage has some simple audio based tests to ensure you have set your speakers up right.

Man you have a fairly dysfunctional system in that a lot of the things meant to minimize the setup are broken. With that said. Some options I thought of are:

Option a:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008JYB93G Cheapest DAC you can buy. $16
https://www.amazon.com/VONOTO-Switcher-Toslink-Splitter-Converter/dp/B00PZKA5E6/ for switching between toslinks $14
https://www.amazon.com/IEC-Speaker-Wire-Pair-Males/dp/B003U46G8I/ To connect the powered monitors to the subwoofer, you can use these with the splitters below.
https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-YRA-104-Dual-RCAF-Y-Cable/dp/B000068O4Y x 2
https://www.amazon.com/KabelDirekt-feet-Stereo-Audio-Cable/dp/B00DI89IQS $10 connects from splitters to subwoofer.

That is the low cost version. You can replace the $16 dac with a micca Origin+ ($110 shipped) and then you'd also have a cost-efficient DAC/PReamp with a volume nob, and ability to switch between input sources and output sources easier. Would also increase audio quality by a bit if your input source isn't too good.

Want to add an equalizer, high pass filters, etc? Look into a Mini DSP 2 x 4. That should take care of those needs. But I don't think it would really be all that necessary. Your call, this is the cheapest way imo to do this.

Best of luck.

http://www.amazon.com/IEC-Speaker-Wire-Pair-Males/dp/B003U46G8I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1393720185&sr=8-2&keywords=rca+to+speaker+cable

Sharper image probably just used rcas instead of speaker connectors to make the connections easier.

You can use something like this, no work required: https://www.amazon.com/IEC-Speaker-Wire-Pair-Males/dp/B003U46G8I

or

You can solder something like this on to some regular speaker wire: https://www.amazon.com/Pink-Lizard-Audio-Adapter-Connector/dp/B01INFY4UK/ref=sr_1_54?s=aht&ie=UTF8&qid=1482734318&sr=1-54

IEC 18 AWG 6' Speaker Wire Pair with RCA Males - Black/Red https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003U46G8I/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_rVWMDb15G45FB

Help With Setup Please

Hey there, hoping this would be a good place to ask for help with my setup. I just recently got a used Klipsch subwoofer. The line-in is 1 L/R rca input. I also have a pair of desktop speakers with speaker wire inputs on the back, and a turntable with a rca output. Not if I were to buy speaker wire with rca male ends ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003U46G8I/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_erLPDbF4WPEYS ) and this AV splitter ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0767DRZF5/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DxLPDbX72ZRSH ) would I then be able to play the audio from the turntable to the speakers and subwoofer? If not, then how?

Ok, this is what you need:

https://www.amazon.com/IEC-Speaker-Wire-Pair-Males/dp/B003U46G8I/

You wire up the speaker cable to a pair of bookshelf speakers, and you plug the RCA jacks into the back your subwoofer.

Here are some decent cheap bookshelf speakers to replace your satellites:

https://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-T15-Bookshelf-Speakers/dp/B002RJLHB8/

Thanks for the reply!

After reading your comment and the manual, I had created this configuration: Right speaker plugged into right outputs of channel A on receiver, cable from left outputs of channel A on receiver plugged into Right inputs on sub , cable running from left inputs on sub to left speaker. However, this resulted in the left speaker not playing sound, and while the sub worked, it seemed very weak (all cables are speaker cables, no RCA). Did I do this right? I was confused by your comment and the manual because there are nothing is labeled as "output" on the back of the sub, so i didn't see how anything of those would send sound to the second speaker.

Here are the parts of the manual that seem relevant but I don't see how these options would work:

> If your amplifier only has one set of outputs you may
connect your amplifier to your speakers as normal and
run an additional set of cables from your speakers to the
subwoofer’s 'Speaker Level Input' binding posts.

How would I run cables from speakers to subs when there are no outputs on the speakers and the inputs are already taken up by the cable coming from the receiver?

> It is also possible to connect the left and right outputs of
your amp to the left and right 'Speaker Level Input' of the
subwoofer and run additional cables from your subwoofer
to the speakers.

This is what I described above, which didn't work. Unless I put 2 cables into each red/black terminal, I don't see how this works either.

What am I missing?

EDIT: Or should I buy something like this, which would free up the speaker level inputs on the sub to run to my speakers?

Cables like this

Keep in mind, receivers that used these RCA plugs for the speakers generally didn't output much power, so if you have larger power hungry speakers, it might not sound good.

Only one jack usually means its a Mono setup as well. I have seen a few "console" stereos that have one internal speaker and you plug a 2nd speaker in for Stereo, but that's not terribly common.

I have a Jolida tube amp and a pair of Heresy iii speakers lately been obsessing over what subwoofer to add. Because both my wife and I hate big subwoofer boxes sticking out in the room I have been looking at slim models and ones that are reviewed well and go below 30HZ an awful small list.

The one I like PSB Subseries 150 has one LFE input and I already have a Y cable from an old Home Theater setup but the Jolida has no line output at all!

Would something like this work at all?

Speaker wire to rca:

https://www.amazon.com/IEC-Speaker-Wire-Pair-Males/dp/B003U46G8I/ref=pd_sim_23_1/139-9690522-5875109?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B003U46G8I&pd_rd_r=483a352f-3166-11e9-9bfd-ad0a97d0ca89&pd_rd_w=caKuE&pd_rd_wg=S3ELR&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=ZCRMZJ2TXPHXHM34QW8A&psc=1&refRID=ZCRMZJ2TXPHXHM34QW8A

I don't see any significant reason why you shouldn't be able to use the Polk T15 speakers to substitute for the Logitech sides.

My only questions would be relative efficiency and crossover frequency. Will the Polk replacements be louder (or softer) than the original Logitech sides (relative to the subwoofer) And will the sides to subwoofer crossover frequency be compatible with the low-end response of the Polk sides? But these may be minor issues and IMHO it would be worth the experiment.

Yes you can use any RCA audio cable and chop off one end to terminate to the Polk speakers. But you might get better performance from a slightly more beefy cable made for passive speaker connections. Perhaps something like:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003U46G8I

RCA, not banana. Use something like this http://www.amazon.com/IEC-Speaker-Wire-Pair-Males/dp/B003U46G8I/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1405627695&sr=1-1

Would this work?

https://www.amazon.com/IEC-Speaker-Wire-Pair-Males/dp/B003U46G8I

Probably the Black RCA Jacks. The Red & White are normally for components. Traditionally speaker cables are Red & Black. You can use any small speaker but you'll need RCA to bare wire cables.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003U46G8I

So that amp is part of that rare breed that use RCA jacks for speaker connections instead of standard bare speaker wire. Easiest way to solve this would be to use a cable like this that has bare wire on one end and RCA on the other.

As for the phono preamp, the biggest thing is to not use two phono preamps. If you plug the Denon into the phono input on the amp, disable the Denon's preamp. Turn it back on if you plug it into another input on the amp. You may want to play around with this and figure out which preamp sounds better.