Blog Of Rick Pepper

PartsExpress has obviously executed on a plan to be the source for DIY speaker builders, here’s their project showcase link.

And the “old-timer” in the biz, Madisound. I’ve spent a ton with them.

Neutrix Speakon connectors are the de-facto standard on professional speakers and amplifiers these days. You will still see plenty of 1/4 inch jacks in use, but anything of substance features the Speakon connectors, and with good reason. They feature 4 or 8 conductors simplifying the cabling of bi-tri or even quad-amped cabinets, portable rack to structure interfacing, or just increasing wire gauge by using multiple conductors in parallel.

They can come in handy for car audio too :~) I use one in my van system to connect my very compact sub (picture to follow.) Since the amp is still in the vehicle and only drives the sub I wanted a way to kill the turn-on wire to the amp when the sub wasn’t connected. Enter; the Speakon connector, 4 conductor version. I pass the feed to the sub through 2 of the pins, and a send/receive feed of the turn-on wire through the other 2. Inside the sub cabinet I have the 2 pins for the turn-on wire jumpered together, so the only way to turn on the amp (and only needing <100 mA capacity to get it done) is to have the cable plugged into the sub. This made it a no-brainer for my wife to deal with (user friendly) and kept the amp safe by not being driven into no load since the head unit still powers the 4 corner speakers.