- 4 -
Speaker connections - General recommendations
You may use bare solid or standard wire up to AWG12, certain spade lugs, banana or 3/4" (l9mm) dual-
banana plugs with the HCA- 1200II speaker terminals. lf you use bare wire without plugs, make sure you
strip off only enough insulation so the bared wire fits through the hole that runs sideways through the
terminal's metal shaft. Before inserting the wire, twist all its strands tightly to prevent strays that could cause
a short circuit b and - terminals.
•
Note
The speaker terminal shafts may be slightly too thick to accomodate standard 1/4" spade lugs. If you prefer
to use spade lugs instead of banana plugs, you can insert one half of each "spade" into the hole across each
terminal shaft. But if you do this, make sure you don't permit the lug to rotate as the terminal is tightened
down. It can easily cause the terminal shaft to shear off, as it is relatively weak in this one area due to the
large diameter of the opening for accomodating heavier gauge wires. We recommmd banana plugs for con-
venience. The HCA-1200II Limited Warranty does not cover terminals which have been sheared after twist-
ing by spade lugs.
Polarity
It is important to observe correct polarity. One side of the speaker wire will have some sort of mark: either
printing, a raised ridge on the insulation or a different color of conductor. This permits you to know which
wire you had connected to the + and which to the - speaker terminals so you can do exactly the same at the
power amplifier terminals. Polarity is marked separately for both stereo and bridged connections.
Mono Speaker Connection
When you bridge the left and right channels, you connect your speakers to the combined bridged channels
differently. You bridge by using only the two red + terminals. Also will note the red + terminals have alter-
nate markings for bridging. The right channel's red terminal becomes -, and the left channel's red terminal
b.
Unbridged stereo speaker connections can be made with two standard 3/4" (19mm) "dual banana" plugs.
You may also use a single standard 3/4" (19mm) "dual banana" plug for the mono bridge connection to the
two inner red + terminals.
Mono Bridge Switch
Simply select Mono (up) or Stereo (down) as marked on the rear panel. We recommend that the power is
switched off before moving this switch. If you accidentally leave the Mono Bridge switch in the Mono (up)
position, you will find stereo output will be very weak and distorted. Tum the unit off before switching back
to Stereo (down).
•
Safe Operation Note
You may use 4
Ω
- 8
Ω
rated speakers for stereo operation. Lower impedance loads are not recommonded,
as they may cause overheating and trigger one of the many protection circuits.
You may use only 4
Ω
rated speakers for mono bridged operation only if you don't intend to run your HCA-
1200II at high levels for extended periods.
This 8
Ω
restriction results from the mathematics of the bridging circuitry. In the bridge mode each channel
of the amplifier functions for only the + or - half of the musical waveform. Thus, each channel "sees " only
half of the speaker's impedance. Use of an 8
Ω
speaker means that the load for each channel is 4
Ω
. And for
a 4
Ω
speaker, it would result in only 2
Ω
.
