A couple of questions from a HT newbie....

[VTHokie01]

I received the final component of my HT system for Christmas, a Kenwood VR6070 reciever. My wife and I returned home last night and I hooked up all the video connections and have that working properly. Tonight I move onto the speakers, RM6200s.

So here are my questions to you, the seasoned veterans:

1) What type (angled, pin, flex pin) connector do you recommend for connecting the speaker wire to the the binding posts on the back of the speakers?

2) With regards to air space around the reciever, the manual recommends 50 cm (roughly 20 inches) of clearance from the top of the receiver. Based on your experiences, is that a valid recommendation? With my current setup, I can tell you right now that I don't have the room for 20 inches of clearance above the receiver.

3) Any final tips you can provide that may make the process of hooking up speakers for the first time a touch easier? Not that it appears to be overly difficult, but I'm sure something always comes up.

Thanks!

[GZ]

Just one persons opinion here, I'm sure you'll get more:

1. Why not just run the bare twisted end of the wire right to the binding post? If you have any soldering skills you can solder the ends of the twisted wire so they don't fray. You don't need pins or plugs unless you plan on disconnecting and reconnecting the speakers alot.

2. Are you sure the Kenwood manual says 50cm, not 50mm? 50mm would be about 2". Keeping air flow around the reciever IS very important, but 20" is overkill.

3. I would suggest you label every wire and connecion you make to the back of your reciever. You'll be glad you did later. Just get some of those blank white adhesive labels they use for envelopes and label both ends of a wire or cable. For example: 'DVD audio out to Rec' plugs into your DVD, 'Rec audio in from DVD' plugs into your reciever. Then wrap it around the wire or cable onto itself. You can cut the labels in half and you'll have plenty of space to write. Give yourself some extra speaker wire too. Say if you've got a speaker wire run of 15', give yourself about 3 or 4 extra feet, until you're happy with the placement. This may take a few weeks of tweaking until you find just the right spot for the speaker where it sounds the best, and looks the best to keep the wife happy. After the placement is finally determined you can cut off the extra wire. This sure beats having to splice wire on to make a longer run if necessary.

Hope this helps, and good luck with your hook-ups.

GZ

[TroyD]

My personal preference for speaker wire connection is bananna plugs. I change speakers and amps quite a bit so it makes it a lot easer. Plus the back of a receiver can get pretty congested, I think banannas makes it neater.

Ventilation? 20" seems a little much, IMO. As long as air can circulate freely around the receiver, you should be OK. Just keep an eye on it and if it starts getting really hot or the thermal protection kicks in, well, you'll know that you need to do some rearranging.

As for the rest of it, between the forum archives and the Polk library there is a TON of good information out there but if you have questions, by all means, ask away!

Welcome!

BDT