I need to wire a PA Loud speaker using cat5 cable.?

Question

The speaker has a green, red, black, and white cable on it for connections. My Cat5 cable already has the orange pair used for a phone line. My question is which pairs should i use to hook to the speakers and which colors to which? (not a good job for a network administrator, at least in my mind)

Answer 1

My first question is why are you using cat 5 for speaker wire, not that it wont work just fine, assuming its 8 ohm or 70v. But, well nevermind...onto your question....

It makes no difference, as long as the colors are the same on both ends.

So for instance, just make sure whatever cat5 colors you use on the speaker end that you use the same on the amp side.

You will need to determine which colors are what though on the speaker, you know, is red+right, black-right, green+left, white-left. or is it something completely different.

Contact the manufacturer if your not sure, or your sound will be out of phase.

Answer 2

It sounds like you have a commercial 70 volt speaker there.  You really don't want to have the phone line and the 70 volt speaker share the same cable.  The 70 volt speaker signal will probably "bleed" into the phone line and maybe visa versa.  

If it really is a 70 volt system, then you need to use a seperate 18 or 20 gauge two conductor wire from the PA amp to the speaker.  The different color wires are the different "taps" on the speaker.  One wire goes to the common and the other to one of the taps.  Which tap is determined by several factors, but it is safe to start with the one labeled with the lowest number and work up.

It would help if you knew the make and model of the speaker.