# RCA cables for sound



## Rascal (Sep 24, 2008)

I have a prop that has an internal speaker. My problem is the speaker is about the size of a quarter so you can't really hear it. The sounds it makes are great so I just want to amplify it. 

In the past I rigged up my kids karaoke machine and put the mic close to the speaker but this is no longer an option.

Can I just take the two wires that go to the speaker and wire them into an RCA plug? If I could do that, I could plug the RCA jack into a boombox and I'm gold

Does anyone know if this would work?


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## CarlBear (Oct 3, 2008)

I did something similar, only I wired it to a set of powered PC speakers and it worked fine...


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## Koumajutsu (Aug 9, 2006)

yeah, it would work. the tip is the black wire


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## Rascal (Sep 24, 2008)

Thanks for the info. I tried it and it works, sort of. The sound source is amplified, I believe as it was wired to the speaker and you could hear it from a couple of feet away. 

The speakers I am using are also self-powered, but the sound is coming out distorted.

Playing with the shielding on the RCA jack/cable fixes the distortion, but then the sound is really low.

Any thoughts?


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## Zombie-F (Apr 12, 2004)

Rascal said:


> Thanks for the info. I tried it and it works, sort of. The sound source is amplified, I believe as it was wired to the speaker and you could hear it from a couple of feet away.
> 
> The speakers I am using are also self-powered, but the sound is coming out distorted.
> 
> ...


Did you make your own cable or buy one? It sounds to me like there is an intermittent contact issue with the cable. Either a solder joint is bad or else the inside of the connector may have a short.

Another possibility is that the cable has a break in it.


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## Scottzilla (Jun 13, 2007)

It sounds like the signal is too hot for the input of the powered speakers. Do they have a volume control? Does the distortion get better if you turn them down?

As far as playing with the shielding goes, it sounds like you are either shorting the two wires together or disconnecting one of them. Enough signal leaks through so that you can still hear it a little, but since it is so low there is no distortion.


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## Spider Web (Oct 11, 2007)

Depending on how much louder you're looking for...Another option my be to simply wire a 4" speaker to the original on board speaker. Granted, it won't be "boom box" loud but may be enough and it's easy enough to try.

I did this with one of those Gemmy laughing rocks and it was quite sufficient for my purpose.


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## Rascal (Sep 24, 2008)

Scottzilla said:


> It sounds like the signal is too hot for the input of the powered speakers. Do they have a volume control? Does the distortion get better if you turn them down?
> 
> As far as playing with the shielding goes, it sounds like you are either shorting the two wires together or disconnecting one of them. Enough signal leaks through so that you can still hear it a little, but since it is so low there is no distortion.


That's what I was wondering. Since the prop is powered, maybe the signal is too much for the powered speakers.

The speakers do have volume control, along with bass and treble settings. The sound is distorted regardless of the volume. We played with the shielding a bit more and it has cleared up the distortion to tolerable levels, but the volume still isn't as loud as it should be.

I think we are going to quite while we are ahead and just run it as-is.

thanks for the feedback everyone.


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## MansionHaunter (Sep 20, 2006)

If you have the room, you can build a sort of speaker cabinet for that little speaker. It doesn't have to be big to make a big sound, it just needs the right resonant chamber.

Some pvc pipes folded around it the proper way - say, three feet total of pvc pipe, with the speaker about 9 inches in on one side of the whole array - would make that thing belt out audio far more than simply tacking on a larger speaker.


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