Noob question about banana plugs

[badlydrawnboy]

So I just moved into a house that has had some speaker wire run through the walls in the TV room. The wires have banana plugs on both ends.

I have a Yamaha RX-V371B 5.1 receiver. On the back it has 2 jacks (probably the wrong word) labeled "right front" and "left front" that look like they could take banana plugs. They're cylindrical in shape, one is red and the other is black.

The other jacks are spring clips. These are labeled "rear surround" or and "front center".

Here's the problem: the rear speakers in the room that are wired through the wall have banana plugs on both ends. Is it possible to put banana plugs into spring clips?

 

[PAPO]

Step 1: cut off the banana plugs

Step 2: strip the wire and twist it

Step 3: connect it

and now there's no difference

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Each banana plug has two separate wires going into it. So the right channel has two wires, and the left channel has two wires. Should I just twist them together and insert into the spring clips?

 

[jtara]

Each banana plug has two separate wires going into it. So the right channel has two wires, and the left channel has two wires. Should I just twist them together and insert into the spring clips?

No, but that's a good way to test your receiver's short-circuit protection!

There should be two spring clips per channel. Each of the two wires goes into one spring clip.

To keep things straight, Red is usually +, Black is -. On the cable, the wire with a stripe on the insulation, or the copper-colored wire is +, the other one is -.

You can't damage anything by reversing + and -, but it wouldn't sound good. If you were to reverse the wires on one speaker, one speaker would be "pushing" while the other is "pulling".

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Here's what's confusing. There are only two speakers on the rear wall. Each has a white cable running from the speaker into the wall. Inside of that white cable there are 4 - not 2 - wires total. 2 wires twisted together going into the positive terminal, and 2 wires twisted together going into the negative terminal.

So it would appear that in this case, for some reason (??), there are 2 wires instead of 1 for each terminal. Here's a picture:

 

[jtara]

Here's what's confusing. There are only two speakers on the rear wall. Each has a white cable running from the speaker into the wall. Inside of that white cable there are 4 - not 2 - wires total. 2 wires twisted together going into the positive terminal, and 2 wires twisted together going into the negative terminal.

So it would appear that in this case, for some reason (??), there are 2 wires instead of 1 for each terminal.

Ah.

They just doubled-up the wires, which will halve the resistive loss, a good idea if it's a long run. They probably just had the 4-conductor cable, and somebody said "hey, why not...."

So, yes, just treat each soldered pair as a single conductor, after verifying that they've done this at both ends of the cable.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Thanks. I know so little about this, it's helpful to have your advice. They are doubled on each end, so looks like twisting them together before putting into the spring clips should work.