Speaker Input wires, Help!!

[vfash]

I have a home theater receiver with wire speaker inputs, but my 5.1 speaker system has RCA jack inputs. What do I do? There has to be a way to make this work. Thanks.

 

[jonnythan]

What kind of speaker system is this? Does it have its own amplifier?

 

[vfash]

It's a Coby CS-P94. Can I cut off the RCA jack and put the wires into my receiver?

 

[jonnythan]

I presume that would be catastrophically bad. I assume the RCA inputs are line-level inputs, meaning they take un-amplified signals, the same way your receiver's inputs do.

Sounds to me like the speakers have the receiver and amplifier built in.. perhaps your receiver has pre-outs? I presume your receiver has more inputs and features which is why you want to use it.

 

[jonnythan]

Of course, you might also be saying that the speakers themselves have RCA plugs on the end, in which case the thing to do would probably be to cut them off and plug them into the receiver.... but you run the real risk of overdriving the speakers with more wattage than they can handle, and they may have a lower impedance than the receiver can handle.

 

[vfash]

My receiver is a Yamaha HTR 5830. I just found out from Coby that all the speakers plug into the sub-woofer, then the subwoofer gets plugged into the DVD player. I guess I can't use my receiver. The speakers have 150 watt output, so the amp must be in the woofer.

 

[jonnythan]

You could just get some new speakers for that nice new receiver

 

[vfash]

Jonathan,

Was wondering. Can I plug the RCA cable from the sub-woofer into the back of my receiver instead of the back of the DVD Player?

 

[jonnythan]

Jonathan,

Was wondering. Can I plug the RCA cable from the sub-woofer into the back of my receiver instead of the back of the DVD Player?

You can plug your DVD player's audio outputs (preferably Digital Coax or Optical) into your receiver, yes. Then your receiver's speaker outputs should go to speakers.

 

[vfash]

Won't the power of the receiver blow out the speakers?

 

[jonnythan]

Won't the power of the receiver blow out the speakers?

It might if you actually supply that much power to the speakers... but you'll probably blow out your eardrums first supplying 140w to speakers with 89dB sensitivity.

(This is as I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong)