Simple speaker question

[FuzzyPlushroom]

Hey guys...

I've set my mind to building a stereo out of whatever I can get my hands on. So far, what I have is my mp3 player with a cassette adapter (one of those car ones) plugged into its headphone jack, and the other end fed into a Kenwood KRC-3005 cassette deck. That, in turn, is powered by an Enlight 200w AT PSU, and turns on just fine, seems to work well enough - although I got the deck for free, and it may well be defective in some way.

The question I have involves getting sound back out of it. It has two RCA jacks at the back for "rear output", and the impression I'm getting from the manual is that they're powered:

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/1286/kenwoodru6.png

I have an RCA composite video cable running out of one channel to an old (but known-good) KLH Model Twenty speaker at the moment. I'm not getting anything out of it, even with the volume maxed out on both the mp3 player and the Kenwood.

My questions are as follows:

- Are there differences between RCA audio and video cables? I don't believe there are, from what I can find online.

- In the diagram above, does "optional" mean "if you want to use those outputs", or "for better control and higher volume"?

Hope someone's got an idea here; it's starting to bother me, and I'd rather not dive into the cable jungle behind the DVD player if I don't have to.

[Luke122]

There is no difference between RCA cables for audio and video.. or for coax digital for that matter, or component video (RGB).

Optional in the diagram means that if you want to use a power amp to drive speakers, you can. Otherwise, just use the speaker outputs in the wiring harness.

The RCA outputs are level controlled (volume controlled) by the volume on the unit, but they will still be just a low level output. Try to hook some speakers to the ouputs on the wiring harness,

[FuzzyPlushroom]

Got it - so it's definitely not the cable. These are pretty sizeable speakers, so the RCA output just might not have enough oomph to drive them.

I'll see what I can do about wiring 'em up to the harness. Certainly worth a try, I was just trying to find an easier solution. :p

[Luke122]

The signal coming from the RCAs is totally un-amplified.. wont drive speakers of any size.

[FuzzyPlushroom]

Alright. That completely answers things then.

Success, by the way. Well, aside from the fact that I need some thicker wire, I need to solder things together properly, and the speakers in question have NOT aged well. Either way, it's a good proof of concept.

Thanks Luke! +rep