When you love good sound, getting the best performance out of your equipment is essential. But sometimes the little things can impair the performance of your system. Speaker wire connections are a good example. While you can connect your speakers to your amplifier by using bare wire, a speaker wire plug will ensure a clean and stable connection, now and in the future. It's a small investment in time and money that pays off in better audio performance.
Instructions
1. Select speaker plugs to match your application. There are several different styles of speaker plugs available, each designed to fit into different types of speaker terminals. The most common are banana plugs and pin connectors (see additional resources for more on this topic and vendors).
2. Cut your speaker wire to the appropriate length with your wire cutters. The speaker wire should be long enough to reach from the output of your amplifier or receiver to the back of your speakers, taking into account how you have to route the wires.
3. Strip the insulation off of the ends of the wire so that 3/8 to 1/2 inch of wire is exposed, using your wire strippers.
4. Slide your speaker plug over the bare wire. Make certain that no bare wire is exposed. Then twist or crimp the connector into place -- which method you use depends on the brand of connector -- twist-on connectors will be labeled as such on the packaging.
5. Check that your connectors match the speaker wire's polarity -- simply put, make sure that the connector that's color coded red is on the same lead on both ends of the wire. When you've checked, plug your speaker wires into your audio gear and enjoy your music.
Tags: speaker wire, bare wire, your speaker, ends wire, performance your, speaker plugs