Harman-Kardon HKS 9 Speaker Connections, Connection Guide, Configuring Your Receiver or Processor

SPEAKER CONNECTIONS

Connection Guide

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

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

the (–) terminal.

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

Newer Harman Kardon receivers conform to the new CEA standard and therefore use a color other than red 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 receiver for further details.

Although the HKS 9 speakers may be placed in the front, side surround or surround back positions, the speaker wires provided with the system have been color-coded brown for the surround back left speaker and tan for the surround back right speaker. When used with the HKTS 18 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 noted with a stripe. It is important to connect both 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 programmable bass-management capability, which allows the component to output the lowest frequencies (the bass information) exclusively to a separate subwoofer speaker, or to a main speaker 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 configuring your receiver or processor for the channels where HKS 9 speakers are being used, select “Small.”

SPEAKER CONNECTIONS 5