Kennay wrote:I`m still not all that clear on this. I`m planning on hooking up a mc 50 pretty soon, I hope.
1 I want to hook up the preamp to the mac with a 22 guage (would that be a good gauge?) 1/4 to 1/4 cable. I bought a 1/4 to rca adapter for that. I think I`m on the right track there.
2 From mac to cab I want to use a 12 gauge 1/4 to 1/4 cable. I have to cut off one of the 1/4`s to connect it to the mac. How many wires are in a cable? 3? What color are the positive, negative and ground. Do I have to be super paranoid about letting the + touch the -? Connect ground to Com and positive to 4ohm tap. Is it soup yet? Thanks in advance for your help and for putting up with the remedial reading class.
Kennay.
The cord from the preamp to the mac should be normal shielded audio cable, guitar cord, stereo rca type connector wire, whatever, just be sure it's good and it's shielded audio cable. It will have 2 conductors, a center "hot" conductor and an outer shield (ground) conductor just like any guitar cord would have.
The wire from the Mac to the Speaker cab should be decent quality speaker wire. Not shielded audio wire, but speaker wire. 2 conductors. One wire will go to the "com" or "common" (aka: ground) on the Mac. The other will tie to the terminal screw on the Mac that corresponds to the impedance load of your cabinet. It's best to solder on eyelets or lugs at the mac end, so they safely and securely fasten to the Mac's screws and can't short out or touch anything else. And of course, at the speaker cab end, never let those contact short out. To be sure this never happens, always have the speaker cord plugged into the speaker cab jack before powering up the amp. So yes, always be super paranoid about letting the speaker leads at the cabinet end short out (or touch eachother). Never let that happen. This can hurt an amp in a very short period of time. Shorted speaker wires is one of the more common and easy ways to fry a power amplifier.
B