Wireless Speaker Question

[kyledawg92]

My dad has an old surround sound system, 4.0 I believe. At the moment, we only have two front speakers, and I'm looking to buy a center speaker and two rear ones. For the rear ones, I was hoping it might be possible to use wireless speakers, so we don't have to worry about dropping wires from the ceiling and such. I've been looking around online, and all the transmitters for the wireless speakers that I've seen seem to only have like the red/white RCA, 1/4 stereo, or 3.5mm headphone jacks.

So basically, my question for you guys is if you know of any wireless speakers that use the basic speaker wire that you have to clip into the back of the surround sound system. I'm not aware of the technical term for this, but hopefully you guys know what I mean.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum!

I imagine that you are asking that question because your dad's surround sound receiver doesn't have pre-amp (RCA) outputs for the surround channels. Is that correct? If not, then we might approach this a different way.

Amphony makes an integrated product that might fit your needs. It's their Model 1520 amplified stereo wireless system. Their Model 1500 can also connect the way that you want, but you'd need an external amplifier for the rear speakers (or have powered speakers).

You can also buy converters that take a high-level (speaker wire) input and convert it to a low-level (RCA) output. This one costs $25 at Crutchfield. That would allow you to connect a speaker-wire connection to any of the wireless ones like you mentioned.

Is that what you're looking for? Just let us know, because their are other options available.

 

[kyledawg92]

Thanks for your reply, Adam.

The Crutchfield converter you linked sounds about like what I need. Judging from the picture though, it looks like it only has one speaker wire? I would assume that since it has 4 outputs, it would take 4 inputs, but why is there only one wire, or is that wire just something else?

 

[Adam]

Happy to help.

I've never used one of those converters, but I think that wire might be the ground wire. The speaker wires actually connect on the side that you can't see where the labels "A1" through "A8" are shown.

Here are a couple of images that I found on the internet. Do a Google image search for "Scosche SLC4" and you'll find a number of them.

 

[kyledawg92]

Ah, I see how it works now, thanks. I just have to buy a small spool of speaker wire, right?

That actually reminds me of another thing I was worried about. The channels for the two front speakers each have a slot for a negative and a positive wire. However, for the rear and center speakers, they only have one, and it's not specified whether it's positive or negative. This seems as though it may be a problem, as the converter has slots for both positive and negative for each of the rear speakers, but the receiver only outputs one for each. Do I just plug in one half of the wire for each?

 

[Adam]

That's strange.

Is this an all-in-one surround sound system that your dad has? What's the model number of it? I could look it up. All speakers need a postive and negative wire because they are essentially just part of an electrical circuit. There might just be one connector, but it should have two pins inside of it.

 

[kyledawg92]

The receiver is a Kenwood KR-V5560. It's at least 10 years old, so you might have a bit of trouble finding documentation for it .

 

[Adam]

The receiver is a Kenwood KR-V5560. It's at least 10 years old, so you might have a bit of trouble finding documentation for it .

Nah, no trouble at all. The owner's manual is linked here in PDF format.

According to the manual, there are positive and negative terminals for all speakers. Perhaps the confusion is that there are two sets of inputs for front speakers (A and B pairs)? If you would, take a look at pages 4 and 5 of the linked manual and let me know if your dad's receiver looks the same in the back. Thanks.

 

[kyledawg92]

Oh wow, you're right, the A and B thing confused me. I figured the A/B switch was for all the speakers, not just the front two. You'd think they'd design all the inputs so that the different polarities are all next to each other... not have two like that and then have the other three stacked up instead .

One last question, I was looking at other speaker wire to RCA converters out of curiosity, and spotted a speaker wire to RCA female wire. Would that work in place of the thing you linked to?

http://www.connectworld.net/cgi-bin/hello-cables/L74234-01?qxI6ovvG;;26

I'd prefer to have something a bit more simple.

 

[Adam]

One last question, I was looking at other speaker wire to RCA converters out of curiosity, and spotted a speaker wire to RCA female wire. Would that work in place of the thing you linked to?

Unfortunately, no. I can understand the desire to have something more simple, but what you want to do requires more than a cable. The reason is that the power being sent through the speaker-level connections is far higher than the power going through the RCA connections. They just aren't compatible with each other. The end result is that using a cable like that would likely permanently damage the wireless transmitter.

BTW, has your dad considered upgrading the receiver? Just wondering.

 

[kyledawg92]

Unfortunately, no. I can understand the desire to have something more simple, but what you want to do requires more than a cable. The reason is that the power being sent through the speaker-level connections is far higher than the power going through the RCA connections. They just aren't compatible with each other. The end result is that using a cable like that would likely permanently damage the wireless transmitter.

BTW, has your dad considered upgrading the receiver? Just wondering.

I haven't really asked him about it. I just told him recently that I wanted to mess around with it and get some rear speakers. At one point in our conversation, I remember him saying that it was like $1500 for it when he bought it originally. I told him that he could probably get something better nowadays for only $300 and he didn't believe me haha.

 

[Adam]

I told him that he could probably get something better nowadays for only $300...

I agree with you. Seriously - he could.

The digital surround sound modes (Dolby Digital, DTS, etc.) are significantly better than Pro-Logic, IMO.