I recently found an old speaker from a home theater system. It uses normal speaker wire. Is there a way to hook it up to an aux jack, as to play music from a phone?

 

Maybe. What is the impedance of the speaker and what impedance does the aux jack expect?

 

It uses normal speaker wire. Is there a way to hook it up to an aux jack,

Connect the wires to a plug that fits the jack.

 

I recently found an old speaker from a home theater system. It uses normal speaker wire. Is there a way to hook it up to an aux jack, as to play music from a phone?

Depends on if the Aux Out on the phone requires amplification. A good start would be to read the manual for the phone. Even if the Aux Out could drive a speaker I doubt it would provide much audio power and labeled Aux I doubt it will drive a speaker. Anyway, the phone owners manual is where to start.

Ron

 

I recently found an old speaker from a home theater system. It uses normal speaker wire. Is there a way to hook it up to an aux jack, as to play music from a phone?

An old speaker may not be very efficient in terms of decibel per watt. Also, a phone can't output more than a fraction of a watt. So, don't expect more than a talking volume from the speaker/phone combo - possibly less.

 

I'd be cautious you don't overload the phone with the speaker. Old speaker? Who cares what happens to that. Good cell phone? Yeah, I'd care more about that for sure.

 

I totally agree. It would be a rare phone that can drive an 8Ω load. I'm guessing they have built-in overload protection in case the AUX cable gets shorted, but I wouldn't want to rely on that.

The AUX output is almost certainly a line-out signal meant to drive a 50KΩ load, not a speaker. Unless you mean the headphone jack, which can drive loads in the hundreds of ohms. Either way, I would not hook a home theater speaker to my phone without an amplifier in between.

 

I totally agree. It would be a rare phone that can drive an 8Ω load. I'm guessing they have built-in overload protection in case the AUX cable gets shorted, but I wouldn't want to rely on that.

The AUX output is almost certainly a line-out signal meant to drive a 50KΩ load, not a speaker. Unless you mean the headphone jack, which can drive loads in the hundreds of ohms. Either way, I would not hook a home theater speaker to my phone without an amplifier in between.

Well, you can pull numbers out of your waste hole, or, you can look at your headphones and realize they are usually 16 or 32 ohms. A phone (output impedence of about 4 ohms) can drive a pair of 16 ohms speakers - it doesn't sound great but it is not going to explode.

I would recommend an amplifier.

 

Well, you can pull numbers out of - - -

Actually I was thinking of the AUX OUT on my amplifier. It isn't meant to drive headphones, more like a higher impedance like another amp, a slave amp or something. But you're right, the headphones jack is often called the AUX Output. My car stereo has an input for AUX and it's on the front end of the head unit. It's for being directly connected to a cell phone or MP3 player of some sort. Yeah, it will drive headphones with no problem. But keep in mind those head phone speakers are right in your ear. Try shoving a 12 incher in your ear.

Good night Gracie.

 

Try shoving a 12 incher in your ear.

Ear? I was expecting you to wrap back on the quoted text!

 

Well, you can pull numbers out of your waste hole, or, you can look at your headphones and realize they are usually 16 or 32 ohms.

My post said a phone can drive loads in the hundreds of ohms, which is a true statement. There are plenty of headphones available in that range. No need to pull them out of my chocolate starfish.

https://www.cnet.com/news/headphone...d-to-know-about-low-vs-high-impedance-models/

Some phones can drive lower impedances. iPhones use earbuds that are ~40Ω. Do you know for a fact that what the TS's phone is capable of?

 

We have so little information that we're just speculating.

When I think of a home theater speaker, I think of a speaker that's 18"x18"x36".

 

My post said a phone can drive loads in the hundreds of ohms, which is a true statement. There are plenty of headphones available in that range. No need to pull them out of my chocolate starfish.

https://www.cnet.com/news/headphone...d-to-know-about-low-vs-high-impedance-models/

Some phones can drive lower impedances. iPhones use earbuds that are ~40Ω. Do you know for a fact that what the TS's phone is capable of?

What kind of a crappy engineer are you? Your answer is like, you are claiming you are right because "drive loads in the hundreds of ohms" is somewhere in the "not wrong" universe. He was asking if it can drive a speaker (most common impedence us 8 ohms). Your answer* caused more confusion than help.

* Read as: "whatever came out of your turd slicer"