Question about Yamaha Pro Speakers

[nightflier]

I need to purchase a pair of outdoor speakers for a Halloween project and found these on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/PAIR-YAMAHA-CLUB-SERIES-IV-STAGE-FLOOR-MONITORS-SM12IV_W0QQitemZ250498372905QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_ DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3a52ddd529&_trksid=p4011.c0.m14

Unfortunately, I don't know what I will need to power them. I presume these don't have internal amps, so how do I go from speaker/binding posts on a conventional amp to these speakers which have 1/4" jacks? Or can I even do that?

[Mr Peabody]

You can use bare wire at the amp and just buy some 1/4 plugs from Radio Shack for the other end. I'm not sure on the plugs which would be positive or negative but they should be marked and it shouldn't make any difference as long as both were terminated the same. Or, if you wanted to spend the money I guess you could add spades or bananas to the amp end. The good thing about bare wire is it's easy to fix if you find the speakers out of phase where if you terminate them that way, well, it gets a bit more complicated to fix, right?

[nightflier]

So how does that work, since each 1/4" jack has + & - (each speaker has two of these)? Or is one for the bass and the other for the tweeter?

[Mr Peabody]

Pro speakers typically will have two 1/4" plugs, one "in" one "out", so they can be daisy chained for large venues.

The +/- I talked about was inside the plug where the wire would be connected.

If you will be the owner you should check these out on your home system. I'm not sure about Yamaha but some Electro Voice 2-way speakers I've heard have been really good. I was impressed at how good those compression drivers/horns sound.

[nightflier]

Not really planning to use them in the home. They will be linked to a motion sensor and used to scare the bejeesus out of annoying teenagers who think they've seen it all... mwahahaha...

Thanks for the info.

[harley .guy07]

I have worked with the Yamaha club series speakers before setting up PA systems for bands and club setups and they are quite good for the money. I think 100 watts or so would power them pretty loud sense most PA speakers are very efficient and these are a smaller version of the club series speakers. So if you had a decent amp with good power I think you would be fine running them home audio gear. They are typically 8 ohm so it should not strain a good home amp to power them.