Harman-Kardon HKS 4 Speaker Connections, Configuring Your Receiver or Processor, Left Speaker

Speaker Connections

Speaker-Level Connection Guide

IMPORTANT NOTE: Before making speaker connections, be certain that your receiver or audio power amplifier is turned off and prefer- ably unplugged from its AC power source.

Speakers and electronics terminals have corresponding (+) and (–) terminals. Most man- ufacturers of speakers and electronics, including Harman Kardon, use red to denote the (+) terminal and black for the (–) terminal.

Newer Harman Kardon receivers conform to the CEA standard and therefore use a color other than red or black for the (+) terminal to indicate some speaker positions: e.g., blue for surround left positive (+). However, the black terminal will always be the negative (–) connection. Please see the owner’s guide for your AVR Series receiv- er for further details.

Although the HKS 4 speakers may be placed in the front, side surround or surround back posi- tions, the speaker wires provided with the sys- tem have been color-coded brown for the sur- round back left speaker and tan for the surround back right speaker. When used with the HKTS 11 system, it is recommended that you maintain the color-coding system for all cables to simplify setup, and to ensure that each wire in a channel pair (e.g., front left and right) is the same length as its partner.

The (+) lead of the speaker wire is indicated with a stripe and has the colored band corresponding to the speaker’s position. It is important to connect all speakers identically: (+) on the speaker to (+) on the amplifier and (–) on the speaker to (–) on the amplifier. Wiring “out of phase” results in thin sound, weak bass and a poor stereo image.

With the advent of multichannel surround-sound systems, connecting all of the speakers in your system with the correct polarity remains equally important in order to preserve the proper ambience and directionality of the program material.

To connect the supplied speaker wires to the satellite speaker terminals located on the bottom of each speaker, press the red or black tab, insert the bare end of the wire into the hole, and release the tab. Gently tug on the wire to make sure that it is fully inserted.

Configuring Your Receiver or Processor

Many receivers and processors feature program- mable bass-management capability, which allows the component to output the lowest fre- quencies (the bass information) exclusively to a separate subwoofer speaker, or to a main speak- er that is capable of handling low frequencies, or sometimes to both. During the setup process you will be asked to specify whether the speaker for a given channel is “Large” or “Small.” The terms “Large” and “Small” do not refer to physical size, but to the size of the frequency range the speaker is capable of handling. When configur- ing your receiver or processor for the channels where HKS 4 speakers are being used, select “Small.”

Left Speaker			Right Speaker
+			+
–			–
Left			Right
–	+	–	+
Front-, Surround- or Surround Back-Channel
	Receiver/Amplifier Output

6SPEAKER CONNECTIONS