Boy, this thread brings back memories. A friend won a lotto ticket for a couple of thousand bucks and decided to get a surround receiver, a BD player, and a set of speakers. He liked my set up and he ended up with the same speakers I had in my computer room, a set of SVS bookshelves for the front speakers, his old bedroom speakers for rear surrounds, an SVS center, and he used the sub he already had. He has had difficulties over the years hooking stuff up, so I told him I would come over to do it with him. He got impatient and hooked it up himself and it went badly. He had a decent Yamaha receiver which saved itself when he turned it on. It made a LOUD "boop" noise and shut down immediately. He had the rear surrounds piggybacked onto the front speakers somehow. The plug and cable arrangement reminded me of the one in the pic the OP put up. I couldn't make any sense of it, I think he didn't understand that you weren't supposed to hook his speakers up in every way pictured in the manual at the same time. I was impressed that the Yamaha didn't die. It's still working in his son's bedroom today, about ten years later.
