So I discovered next to the elevator in our place a 15 year old Sony DAV-FC9 stereo system. It seems to come with all the parts except for the remote control. Looking it up on Amazon it seems to have scored quite poorly because the main unit died on most people very quickly. I haven’t plugged this one in yet but I assume that it’s probably also going to be dead. What I’m wondering is, is it worth it to keep the four speakers, the center speaker and the subwoofer in the chance that I happen to pick up a working stereo on the cheap? Would they be compatible? I don’t know if Sony’s connectors are proprietary but the wires seem to be stripped of connectors anyways. Or should I just send the whole thing back out into the hall again?
The speakers are probably fine, if you need them. Any cheap receiver should power them just fine. If they aren’t blown out or physically damaged, speakers essentially last forever. Decades, easily.
This is what the speaker inputs look like. Is that normal? Could I buy the connectors on Amazon? I’ve never owned a stereo system in my life so I have no idea. I just plugged in the receiver and it seems to work (no blinking stand by lights of death anyways). The receiver has no HDMI unfortunately so I don’t think I would use it to output to the TV. But it might work well as an audio system.
Not standard connectors, but they are two wires. My guess is if the receiver doesn’t work, you could just cut the connectors off the end of the speaker wires, strip the ends, and use them in any receiver.
Thanks! You seem like a knowledgeable person. Would you or any other knowledgeable person have suggestions for good, cheap receivers if this one doesn’t work? I figure that for the cost of buying a new remote control and connectors, I might as well invest that money in something like that that’s not 15 years old.
I use The Wirecutter for questions like this, hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
Be careful, they seem to be 3ohm speakers, a bit nonstandard vs 4/8 ohm. May be harmful to some amps or drivers.
That’s funny. The manual says they’re 4 ohms. I wonder what the reason for that discrepancy is. The back of the receiver says “impedance use 4 ohms” so surely they wouldn’t match 3 ohm speakers with a 4 ohm receiver. All though, it IS Sony…
I’ve seen connectors with pins like that before. Pretty sure the wires plug into a separate piece, which then is plugged onto those pins. I bet any stereo shop will have something that fits and you can figure out if it works.
If all you want to do is use the speakers to play audio (you don’t need a receiver for FM radio, or switching inputs, etc), you might look at cheap but pretty good quality class T amps. One example:
Hi,
They’re rounding up 3 ohms to 4 ohms of impedance, and that’s fine. Those measurements are always generalizations anyway, because the impedance varies across the frequency response. Treat these as though they are 4 ohms. (3 ohms isn’t even “officially” a thing — it’s 2, 4, 8, and 16.)
You need to be sure that whatever amp/receiver you get can drive 4-ohm speakers. (A lower number is harder to drive.) If you’re looking at an amp in person, check the back of each amp; there should be a little plate somewhere that lists impedance along with some other data. If only 8 ohms is mentioned, I wouldn’t try it with those speakers. But impedance is all you really need to worry about for compatibility.
I am sure stusser is right that you could clip the proprietary plugs off and use the bare wire or add other speaker terminators — just be sure you know which is the red wire and which the black wire.
Good luck!
Interesting, never seen speaker inputs like that before. At first I thought they looked like ethernet jacks.
Thanks everyone. Interesting input. I’m a total audio noob I have discovered as I do more research. I’ve never used anything but the regular built in speakers on a TV and any music device has been your typical shelf CD stereo with its own speakers attached. The more I read, the less confident I feel.
If I were to use this as just an audio device, is there really any need for more than two speakers? Would it be weird to have the four main ones in four corners of a room? I’m assuming that the more speakers you use, the more it would take to drive them, right? I was looking at audio receivers but it looks like most of the ones at $200 don’t even support less than 8 ohms. I found a Denon that does for $300 but that’s getting up there in price and I would also have to get some kind of CD player to hook up to it.
Anyways, very interesting stuff. It’s fun just for me to experiment. As an aside, we currently have a 55" LG TV in our living room of about 2013 vintage that I picked up in our hallway. It didn’t have a remote or a electric cable but I ordered both from Amazon and then after finding out that the LCDs were dead, I ordered a new set online and took the whole TV apart and replaced them! I’d never opened up a TV in my life but fortunately it was pretty easy. Everything cost about $150 so I’m not sure if I got off with a bargain or not! LOL. Anyways, I’ll soon have a whole home theatre out of the trash.
That sort of connector is pretty common in all-in-one home cinema systems.Before I switched to my current standalone setup, my previous two AIOs had them.
What would you guys recommend as a 2.1 system for my TV? I have one already, but it was meant for a PC and only has a mechanical volume dial versus a remote.
[edit]
I guess soundbar + woofer counts as 2.1.
I have a Sonos Beam myself and like it.