[Reader]

Hi, I just ordered emu 1212m, SA-XR50, CBM-170 Speaker, and DAYTON 100 watt powered sub.

I am new to this type of thing, so I don't know what Cable do I need, I know I need some speaker cable, i ordered some with the speaker, but what about Termination, I heard things like Banana Plug and such. Which type should I use which end?
I will need a digital cable from 1212m to xr50 right? So which type? optical or coax?
And what type of Cable do I need to connect sub to xr50?

Also please sugguest what brand and where I can get them, I don't want to spend too much for cables consider this is a buget setup.

edit: forgot to ask what kind of tool I need to put terminations on speaker cable? any online instructions? This is my first time doing this.

Thank you very much.

 

[Demolition]

Okay, since I don't actually own any of these components, I'm only going by what I've read in the user manuals. Here goes...

Have you got the user manual for your receiver? Starting on page 5, you'll see the types of speaker wire/connectors and other connectors (e.g. for digital audio) that it uses.

Looks like your receiver accepts either bare wire or banana speaker plugs. Your Ascend CBM-170 speakers have 5-way binding posts, so bare wire or banana plugs will work with them. Just run the cables from red to red and white to white between your speaker's posts and the "Front" speaker outputs on your receiver. (You said that you ordered some speaker wire, already. Is it terminated or just bare wire? If it's bare wire, then that will be fine.)

Your Dayton sub has RCA connectors. You'll want to get a subwoofer cable (looks like this) and connect one end to the subwoofer output of your receiver, and the other end to the red input of your sub. It's a mono output, so you only need one cable.

Finally, the E-MU 1212M has both coaxial and optical digital outputs. Your receiver also has coaxial and optical digital inputs. It's your choice whether to use coaxial or optical -- I'm not going to get embroiled in that debate because it seems to inflame passions as much as any other topic here. One side says that coaxial is better because it has more bandwidth and less jitter than optical. It's also less fragile. On the other hand, optical cables aren't grounded, so there's one less place to have a ground loop and the resultant hum.

So, either do a search on Head-Fi or check out other forums for discussions about coaxial digital vs. optical cables (for example, here).

As for where to get budget cables, you could try Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc. Or perhaps Parts Express (where you bought the Dayton sub?).

By the way, the only tools that you'll need are your fingers.

D.


p.s. Did I miss anything? Someone will fill in the info if I did.

 

[Reader]

Demolition, Thank you so much for the help.

The speaker cable I got with the Cbm-170 are just bare wire, I think it is it's this one http://www.ascendacoustics.com/main/...ccessories.asp
What do I need to do with bare wire cable to connect them to the speaker? and with what tool?

I also need to cut them, do I just use anything or I need to buy some tool? And how to cut them?(if it's differenct that normal cutting)
Thanks a lot.

 

[Demolition]

You could probably cut them with the wire cutter portion of regular pliers, if you have a pair. Then, strip the insulation from the individual conductors with a knife. However, to do it properly, you might want to get wire strippers. You can cut and strip the wire with one tool. These can be found for fairly cheap at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. Ascend says that the speaker wire is made up of four 14 AWG conductors. So, if you buy a wire stripper, make sure that it can strip 14 AWG stranded wire.

As for hooking them up... If you bought one big length of wire, you'll need to cut that into two. One for the left speaker and one for the right speaker. As mentioned above, the wire that you bought has four conductors. In the link that you provided, Ascend recommends that you split the four conductors into two pairs. You'll need to twist the conductors of each pair together to make two big conductors. Once done, you should end up with something that looks like this (minus the spade terminations, and with a solid-coloured jacket, of course, but you get the idea that two conductors are paired together). Then, you'd connect both wires to your receiver's binding posts, then run one wire to each speaker's corresponding binding posts (i.e. red to red and black to black for each wire running between the receiver and each speaker). Unscrew the heads, place the conductors inside the holes, then finger-tighten them down. Make sure that it's wired correctly, otherwise it'll sound out of phase.

(There's a simple diagram on page 3 of the CBM-170 user's manual showing the proper connections, if you're wondering where the wires are supposed to go.)

And, that's it! I hope that my explanation wasn't too wordy or confusing. Enjoy your new stereo!

D.

 

[Reader]

Thanks a lot Demolition, you really helped me a lot.

 

[sbulack]

I'm not advocating that you use Optical digital, but if you decide that you'd like to, I'm very happy with the Sonicwave Glass Toslink Cable, and the price I get them from at: www.av-cables.net $35 for 1m, $45 for 2m, $50 for 3m