Surround Sound TV

[Mark]

I am going to cut TV speaker wires to the wall prior to skimming with plaster.

Is there a purpose made termination?

Having a wires poking out of the wall seems a bit basic.

mark

[tony sayer]

In article , Mark scribeth thus

I'm sure I've seen something for that purpose but you could get a white blank wall plate and put something like this thereon.

is a speaker connector also called a "speakon"..

and paste that into your browser..

[Owain]

The connector of your choice mounted on a blanking plate and a standard electrical back box.

Owain

[Clive George]

I did exactly that, and it looks good and appears to work.

cheers, clive

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Usual thing to do is fit a one gang backing box then make up a socket using a blank plate to match your other sockets etc with either an an XLR or Speakon - both available from Maplin etc. If you don't fancy making such a thing, a 3 pin 2 amp plug/ socket will be fine also for low powered TV surround speakers.

[Graham.]

Take care to maintain the correct speaker phasing. I have seen many installations where the user has labelled the channels correctly, but has ended up with one or more speakers wired with the wrong polarity.

[Mark]

Thanks for all the answers guys, will get myself down to Maplin soon.

mark

[Mark]

Guilty as charged! I have noticed in the past that one of the cables is marked with a rib or a black line. What is the risk?

mark

[Frank Erskine]

Many years ago I used a similar arrangement with DIN loudspeaker plugs/sockets - slightly smaller than 'normal' DIN connectors and having one pin and one blade - ·| style.

Quite dated nowadays - the plug wasn't terribly secure in the socket; the connector wasn't really suitable for very high power (but that isn't really relevant for surround sound; and the plugs (and sockets) were fiddly to wire as the connections were quite close together.

Nowadays I'd use either 2A 3 pin, or 4mm banana plugs/sockets (which give you the ability to play about with phasing!).

[Mark]

I'm trying to think what a 3pin 2A socket looks like. Obviously smaller than a 3 pin 13amp.

mark

[Dave Plowman (News)]

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You won't damage anything, but if near exactly between the speakers you'll lose the soundstage and bass to some extent.

It's quite easy to check the phase with decent speakers. Feed them with a speech source - say R4 etc and if possible switch the amp to mono. Sitting in a good listening position - ie at the point of a triangle where the speakers are the base - the speech should come from exactly between them, as if there was only one speaker in the middle. Reverse the phase of *one only* and check again. The voice should now come from near anywhere in the room - except from between the speakers. Where it does come from will depend on the room acoustics.

Another good check involves moving the speakers so they are side by side and close. Feed a music signal with a bass line - ie near any pop music. Out of phase the bass will be much reduced.

[Owain]

But do not use it if you already use 2A sockets for dimmer lighting. Incompetencies do happen :-(

Owain

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Indeed - although this is unlikely since the OP doesn't know what they look like. And by the sound of it are to be wall mounted so not likely to get confused with table lamp circuits.