Thread: Speaker Wire to 3.5mm Jack

speakers are very simple - there is a voice coil which drives the cone - the speaker impedence is important - 4, 8 or 16 ohms normally

the wrong impedence can cause damage to the amp
connecting a speaker to a jack is as simple as splicing the wires - try to get the polarity right it will sound better - but that won't cause damage itself if wrong - but incorrect impedance could damage a PC sound card

Get together with gunnut and test it out on his Win 98 machine...

Originally Posted by USSWisconsin

speakers are very simple - there is a voice coil which drives the cone - the speaker impedence is important - 4, 8 or 16 ohms normally

the wrong impedence can cause damage to the amp
connecting a speaker to a jack is as simple as splicing the wires - try to get the polarity right it will sound better - but that won't cause damage itself if wrong - but incorrect impedance could damage a PC sound card

Nothing to add there, except that at the time there were adapters - jack on the one end, black and red slots on the other. Not sure if you can find any at the moment.

So, yeah, first tried splicing the cables to a regular earphone cable. No joy. Then I took an RCA/3.5mm converter cable and tried splicing the speaker cables to that. Still no dice. Finally I took 4 RCA cables (2 per speaker), spliced those on, spliced those together onto the RCA/3.5mm converter cable and plugged it into my laptop. I finally managed to get some buzz out of the speakers, but apparently they don't have an internal amp and my laptop is not powerful enough to power these speakers. I can understand where gunnut is coming from now, it was kinda fun, though in the end I just put the entire system out on the curb, an hour later it was gone

Originally Posted by bigross86

So, yeah, first tried splicing the cables to a regular earphone cable. No joy. Then I took an RCA/3.5mm converter cable and tried splicing the speaker cables to that. Still no dice. Finally I took 4 RCA cables (2 per speaker), spliced those on, spliced those together onto the RCA/3.5mm converter cable and plugged it into my laptop. I finally managed to get some buzz out of the speakers, but apparently they don't have an internal amp and my laptop is not powerful enough to power these speakers. I can understand where gunnut is coming from now, it was kinda fun, though in the end I just put the entire system out on the curb, an hour later it was gone

This is what happens when you let a tankie boy do fine electronics

I blow stuff up or talk people to sleep, I don't do fine electronics

Parihaka shudders at the state of youth whence someone should actually not understand the nature of a closed circuit and then try to connect high impedance speakers direct to a phone jack. If anyone else should be so foolish but less foolish by realising they need to put a suitable amp in the circuit, remember to keep the volume output on the computer below half volume or you'll blow the preamp in your amplifier.

:Shudders:

bigross, how big are these speakers? Does your laptop's earphone jack have enough power to drive them? That's the first thing I want to know.

Originally Posted by Parihaka

Parihaka shudders at the state of youth whence someone should actually not understand the nature of a closed circuit and then try to connect high impedance speakers direct to a phone jack. If anyone else should be so foolish but less foolish by realising they need to put a suitable amp in the circuit, remember to keep the volume output on the computer below half volume or you'll blow the preamp in your amplifier.

:Shudders:

I shudder at the state of aging men that grew up with this technology all around them and work with said technology and still don't know that a 3.5mm jack has nothing to do with phones...

Originally Posted by gunnut

bigross, how big are these speakers? Does your laptop's earphone jack have enough power to drive them? That's the first thing I want to know.

The speakers were about a 15 inches tall, 10 inches wide/deep. My laptop was not powerful enough to get them to emit more than a soft buzz

Originally Posted by bigross86

I shudder at the state of aging men that grew up with this technology all around them and work with said technology and still don't know that a 3.5mm jack has nothing to do with phones...

Ben, hint, mobile phones, speakers, earphones

He said a phone jack. I don't know of a phone that uses a 3.5mm jack for anything other than earphones, and that is clearly not what Pari meant

Originally Posted by bigross86

I shudder at the state of aging men that grew up with this technology all around them and work with said technology and still don't know that a 3.5mm jack has nothing to do with phones...

:SIGHS: :MUTTERSABOUTYOUTHOFTODAY: :SHAKESHEADSADLYABOUTSTATEOFU.S.EDUCATION:

Phone jack may refer to:

Telephone plug, used to connect a telephone to the telephone wiring in a home or business, and in turn to a local telephone network
TRS connector, an audio jack, jack plug, stereo plug, mini-jack, mini-stereo, or headphone/phone jack

Named phone jack of course because

In the original application in manual telephone exchanges, many different configurations of 1/4″ jack plug were used, some accommodating five or more conductors, with several tip profiles. Of these many varieties, only the two-conductor version with a rounded tip profile was compatible between different manufacturers, and this was the design that was at first adopted for use with microphones, electric guitars, headphones, loudspeakers, and many other items of audio equipment.

and yes, before you ask I am that old

You're gonna have to excuse our Benny here...

it was the US that spawn him....but Israel is stuck with him, so I don't feel THAT bad.