Speaker Wires

[Pat Marshall]

I'm having speaker wire issues, too. In another thread Holger posted a photo that shows the speaker wire plugging directly into the speaker socket in his radio.

Holgers Pix.jpg

I talked to a business in Columbus which services old radios. They said on the Town and Country radio that the speaker wires go into a clip which then plugs into the radio speaker socket.

I looked at a 55-57 Thunderbird parts website and they offer this for the little birds.

Speaker wire.jpg

Since the little birds only had one speaker, this won?t work, but that looks along the order of what the guys in Columbus described.

Does this look familiar to anyone?

[Barry Wolk]

I believe you would have to solder a third wire to the unused terminal to power the second speaker. They would use a common speaker ground for you to have front-rear separation.

[Pat Marshall]

I was thinking that the top two horizontal holes are for the front speaker wires and the lower vertical holes are for the rear speaker wires. I was envisioning either a single 4 wire/4 pin assembly or 2 separate 2 wire/2 pin assemblies.

[Barry Wolk]

Sorry, I missed this. Yes, it's stamped into the sheet metal next to the socket what the vertical and horizontal pairs are. Note that the pins appear to be two different sizes. I would hazard a guess that the smaller holes are the grounds and the larger the speaker source. It wouldn't hurt anything if you reversed them, I don't believe.

[Pat Marshall]

I think I found the answer. This is from Jack Rosen's website. It is a photo of an original front speaker and wiring. Notice that it has a 2 wire/2 pin front speaker plug assembly. So, it appears to me that the wire from the socket to the rear speaker would have a similar 2 wire/2 pin assembly.

Speaker wire2.jpg
Speaker wire2 - Copy (2).jpg

[Barry Wolk]

Hmmmm.... Explain this.

Radio wiring.jpg

[Barry Wolk]

And then this bit of contrary info. only 2 wires where the first showed 3.

I think you're looking for a common 2-pin phenolic plug with 2 different size orientation holes.

Speaker wiring..jpg

[Milsteads Garage]

Hmmmm.... Explain this.

Radio wiring.jpg

I can explain exactly what it is. Your two parallel wires aren’t actually. It’s one wire that’s sheathed to prevent RFID static noise from the ignition wires to stop feedback.

[Pat Marshall]

I know what happens when I assume, but I assume that the larger hole is for the (larger?) sheathed wire and the smaller is for the ground.

I checked my (3) II's and none have plug-in pin assemblies and all have what looks to be newer common speaker wires.

[Pat Marshall]

Breaking News -

My local old time radio repair guy located the Town & Country radio two-prong speaker plugs in Philadelphia and is having them sent immediately.

Morgan, could you expand on the wire that is referred to as a "two conductor wire" in the drawing and that you said is a sheathed wire.

Earlier today, I talked to Jack Rosen about the "two conductor wire" described in the drawing. He said "I've never heard of that!" I told him I'd let him know what I find out.