Question regarding this speaker connection

[BrianTN]

I'm pretty new to the amateur radio world, and am looking at different components. I got a great deal on this Kenwood KES5 speaker, but I'm not sure how to connect a plug to the wire. Any suggestions? Here is a picture of the wire:

Appreciate any help.

 

[BigJimCruising]

Those look like the type of connectors that once you attach the wire you then insert them into a plastic connector, they sort of snap in place. But to use them you need matching connectors. I would just cut off the connectors and splice the wires to whatever output wires you have coming from the radio. If you don't have any wires coming from the radio then head over to the local radio shack or electronics store and buy the plug that fits into the radio and attach the bare speaker wires. Or you can buy the plug that fits into the radio with some wire already pre-attached and then just splice the speaker wires to them. Hope that makes sense?

 

[BrianTN]

I sort of figured that about the plastic connector, but wasn't sure. Anyways, the radio uses a 3.5mm female jack for audio out so I was going to hook up a male jack to the speaker. Does it matter which wire goes where on the 3.5mm jack? I can't tell which is the ground and which carries the signal.

 

[1911]

Those are Molex pins, which some commercial radios use. I would just cut them off like BigJim said. On a single speaker (i.e. not a stereo) I don't think the polarity matters.

 

[BrianTN]

Thanks!

 

[gary in ohio]

The Kenwood KES5 is a speaker for a commercial radio. Most likely a tk-730 or similar vintage radio. That radio used a multi pin molex plug on the back for speaker and various controls.. If you want to use that with you typical radio with a 1/8 speaker jack you will need to cut off the molex connectors and solder on the 1/8 jack.

 

[BigJimCruising]

The only possible issue with hooking up the wires is if the radio is chassis grounded (likely) and the speaker is also chassis grounded (unlikely) or is the speaker is an amplified type. That's easy to spot since to make it work you'd have to hook up a positive and negative wire to a 12volt power source. One way to tell if the speaker is grounded is if the speaker is in a metal box with a metal mounting bracket. You can also open up the speaker box and see if it's got a wire going to the chassis. You only typically see that on much older speakers but it never hurts to make sure. Other then that the speaker won't care which wire you use.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Don't amplified speakers, like the Moto HSN1000, usually have more than 2 pins? Those have a 6-pin header for power and audio.

 

[BrianTN]

I took apart the enclosure and there is no ground wire, so looks like I'm good to go. Appreciate the help.

 

[tanglefoot]

The positive wire (white stripe) is traditionally connected to the center conductor (closest to the end) of the audio jack.