Any other way to hook up the rear center?

[Zoma]

I've seen the Radio Shack banana plugs, but I don't have the equipment or the knowledge to solder them on. How else can I hook up the rear center speaker? Will spades or something else work?

[tdekany]

can't you just push the wire through the small wholes?

[Retread]

I've seen the Radio Shack banana plugs, but I don't have the equipment or the knowledge to solder them on. How else can I hook up the rear center speaker? Will spades or something else work?

There are really only two ways to hook up the rear speaker: (1) the special Radio Shack "banana" plugs or (2) bare wire.

There are two problems: (1) odd sized "banana" jacks; and (2) the jacks are recessed so that there is not a straight shot through the side holes in the jacks and there is very limited clearance.

You can try pushing the stranded speaker wires through the holes, but I was unsuccessfull doing that. The strands go everywhere. Alternatively, you can "tin" the wires with solder so the end is more like solid wire than stranded. But it's not going to work with wires much fatter than 16 GA.

Soldering isn't at all difficult.

You need a small soldering iron kit. Radio Shack sells them for $7.99 (http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&catalog_name=CTLG&category_name=CTLG_005_006_002_005&product_id=64-2802).

If you are going to "tin" the wires, just strip back the insulation, twist the strands, make a "cobra" of solder to sit on the table, hold the wire in one hand and the iron in the other, get the wire hot, and melt the solder into the wire. Done.

If you are going to solder the wire onto a plug, it helps to have a vice-grip plier to hold the plug. But not essential. Put the wire into the plug, hold the solder in one hand and the iron in the other. Put the iron into contact with the plug and wire together, feed solder onto the joint. The solder should "wet" both the wire and the plug. Done.

The only thing tricky about soldering a wire to a plug is jarring the joint as it cools. After the iron is withdrawn, the solder will quickly change states from liquid to solid, and should end up with a shiny surface. If the wire is wiggled after the iron is withdrawn, this will result in a premature state transition that is crystalized and presents a high resistance. You can tell when this has happened, because the solder will have a dull appearance. This is called a "cold joint."

But like I said, soldering is easy. And both fun and satisfying -- in small quantities.

[Zoma]

Thanks Retread, maybe I'll give it a try :)

But before I spend $25 on the plugs and soldering kit, I'm still trying to figure out if I can even run the rear center to my 7.1 receiver. It doesn't have a rear center out, just left and right rear surround channels (see my other thread below this one). Any ideas?

Curious...considering the plugs and kit would cost me $25, I wonder if Hsu would let me swap the rear center for two regular sats (for some extra money, of course)? If a single sat runs for about $25 each and they'd let me swap the rear center for another sat, it would cost me about the same. Plus, a 7.1 system would sound better and be a heck of a lot easier for me to hookup.

[Dudley]

Look in the manual for the reciever there is usually a way to hook up one rear center. Sometimes the positive from one rear and the negative from the other works, but check for yourself.

[Zoma]

I did, it doesn't have directions for a 6.1 speaker setup :(

[Dudley]

On page 14 of your owners manual it says.

"If you only have one surround back speaker, connect it to the left speaker terminals"

You should be good to go. :D

[Zoma]

Yeah, someone pointed that out to me in another forum earlier today :) Thanks, though. I kept looking at page 13 and I think page 12.

[maze446]

I didn't have much trouble threading the wire through. I didn't want to see how good (or bad) I was at soldering so I came up with this method. After I stripped the cover off I twisted the bare wire as tight as I could. I unscrewed the the connectors so they came all the way off. I then bent about 1/8" of the wire to a 90 degree angle and threaded it through the first hole. After that, I used some needle nose pliers to pull more of the wire through until it was completly connected. Only took about 5 minutes total. No loose strands either. I was using 14 ga. wire but I can see where 12 ga. may be somewhat more difficult.