DIY speaker cabinet question

MLC2006

I have a Fender M-80 Chorus amp which is a 2x12 combo. I know you're probably thinking to yourself that I couldn't possibly own such a luxurious piece of musical equipment, but you'd be wrong. here are some picks.......

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e228/ ... 0/amp2.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e228/ ... 0/amp1.jpg


So I'm off work this week and was thinking about taking this amp to the dump. But then, a thought came into my mind......why not just dump the amp and speakers and use the box for a closed-back 2x12? so with the absence of the amp, I know I'll have to make the front plate bigger. no problem. and I can get new material to cover it with and my uncle is a professional upholsterer, so no problem there.


my question is something that would seem much simpler to answer.......what about the speaker wire and jack? do they sell wire with the little clips already made to them to hook up to the speakers? if so, where to buy them? and I assume the jack is a 1/4" jack, but do I just need one jack for both speakers, or 2 different jacks? and where do I get the jacks from?


Thanks, I know these are pretty dumb questions, but I've never really done anything DIY except for a pedalboard.

mccreadyisgod

You'll need to purchase some good braided speaker cable from somewhere like Radio Shack. I'd probably go with 12 or 16 gauge wire. You'll almost certainly want to wire the speakers in parallel, so you'll end up running wire from the 1/4" jack directly to each speaker. You could get fancy and make the box stereo, so you'd end up with 2 jacks, one for each speaker. You could also make it switchable from stereo to mono. But the easiest (especially if you only have a single mono amplifier setup) is to use one jack in mono.

Now, you will need to solder the connection between the speaker wire and the 1/4" jack. I don't think there are any solderless 1/4" jacks capable of speaker-level loads. If you aren't prepared to do this yourself, find a guitar tech or amp tech who can do this for you. You can bring the cables and the jack to them, get the cables soldered onto the jack, and then take them back to the box.

The other ends with the "clips" are actually crimp-on connectors. You can also buy these at Radio Shack. You'll need to measure how wide the terminals on your speaker are so you know which connectors to purchase. You can also buy the next size down and the next size up, just to save yourself a trip back to Radio Shack (those things are cheap). They just slide onto the end of the speaker wire after you've stripped a 1/4" length of bare wire, and a crimp tool (or a good pair of needlenose pliers) smashes the connector's barrel around the wire. It's pretty easy.

I'd always use Switchcraft for a speaker jack, nothing but the standard J11:
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/item.a ... id=2195111

Ironically enough, you could get this little toy:
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/item.a ... id=9131205
It would give you a ton of options for mono and stereo, and it is pre-wired and includes the jack plate as well as crimped ends for the speakers. It's kinda expensive, but it's an all-in-one fancy solution to your problem.

A more simple solution with all the work done:
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/item.a ... id=4132726
You would need to select your own jack plate, and you wouldn't get all those amazing stereo/mono options, but it would be the most straight-forward solution.

Jack plate:
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/item.a ... id=9131215

mccreadyisgod

And if you're literally going to throw them away, then I'd pay shipping for the speakers.