4 Pole vs 2 Pole Speakon

[Lastcat]

What's the census when installing Speakon's onto Cabinets?

2 pole or 4 pole?

If anyone would like to share their experience for installing 2 or 4 pole Speakon plates to their cabinets, would look forward to your advise.

Would the XTI amps have the ability to biamp from both channels, for stereo? Or should I just try and run Mono, running a single 4 wire cable from the amp to the Left DR250 and a single 4 wire from the Left DR250 to the Right DR250?

Thanks
Lastcat

[Lastcat]

From Seis Tres: The reason that there are 4pole speakons is in case you're biamping your system from the same amp or if you're bridging a cab. And the reason why amps come with 4pole is because this how both channels or the bridged signal is sent from only one speakon.

For example, if you are bi amping a two way top, 1+/1- will be channel 1 which will go to the woofer and 2+/2- will got to the tweeter. However, the amp has to do the crossing over internally (like the xti's) or the processed signal has to be fed into each of the two channels. Like this, only 1 4-wire cable has to be run to each set of tops. OR, sometimes this is done where instead of being woofer/tweeter biamping, it can be sub/top biamping if your always split the sub with the tops right above them. So still only one 4-wire cable can be run to each side.

And the other reason, is when you're using speakons and want to bridge your amp into a single cab. For this, you do not need a 4-wire cable; since only 1+/2+ are used, only two wires are needed, but a 4pole speakon is mandatory as bridging from the speakon connector uses the the above connections and the 2pole only has 1+/1-, therefore it cannot be used. And what's more, even a 4pole has to be propely solder in order to be used with a regular cab when bridging is being used.

But if you don't plan to use any of the two above scenarios, 2pole speakons with 2wire cables will do the job.

NOTE! however, be aware that while a 4pole female will take a 4pole and a 2pole male, the 2pole female will ONLY take the 2pole. This becomes a major inconvenience if you're using 2pole females and in an unexpected instance, there is only a 4pole male available.

My cabs have 2pole speakons, 4pole, a few 1/4inch, and two even have spring loaded terminals. My cables are equally fitted
So, from experience, I recommend to load EVERYTHING with 4pole females and then either 2or4pole males.

Oh, and going on what other have also said, also parallel the 2+/2- in all the 4pole females. You never know if you're going to need to use them.

_________________
Built:6 t39 16" bp102, t18,4 Jack 10"M12,autotuba, 2 SLA,2 wedges, 2 TT
Working on:2 tritrix
On the horizon: 4 DR250

[Fish]

Seis Tres hit most of the high points. The four pole version was the original; the two pole came long after and the two are only sometimes interchangeable. Of course, the eight pole connectors aren't at all interchangeable with either of the above.

Unless you opt to spend extra money for the metal shell STX series, the panel mount Speakon connectors are always male (e.g. NL4MP) and the cable connectors are always female (e.g.NL2FC); the STX versions can be either gender in either use but are rather pricey in comparison. Two pole cable connectors will mate with any four OR two pole panel mount connector. Four pole cable connectors will ONLY mate with four pole panel mount connectors.

Personally, I'll always use the four pole connectors for both panel and cable: who knows what I'll do (or need to do... subrented cables?) down the line. As they say: buy once, cry once. If you're trying to save a little money and aren't biamping, I'd do all four pole panel mount and two pole cable connectors.


A two channel amp can be used either stereo or biamped, but not both. Decide which is more important to you and go from there. If you want stereo / two channel now but think you really want to biamp later, I recommend going with 4 pole connectors and cable now so that down the road you just have to add another XTi, assuming that's what you have now. If biamping is more important you would want to use pair one of the Speakon connectors (and channel one on the amp) for lows and pair two for highs as already mentioned and jump from one cab to the next. I like having a separate output panel in my amp rack that allows me to change the connections between the amps and my speaker cables easily. This would allow simple enough conversion between two channel, biamped, and bridged operation as necessary so all your cables can be standard (no need to have weird, custom cables for biamping that need lots of special labels and instruction!). This would allow you to run one cable from your amp rack directly to each loudspeaker by paralleling at the amp, not one loudspeaker.

I haven't heard DR250s myself, but from all the positive reviews I've read there should be no real need to biamp them unless you've used a compression driver. Two conductor cable is much lighter in weight than four, and costs less, too!

Hope this helps.

[gdougherty]

I'll also chime in that 2 pole cable ends are cheap plastic crap. I've seen plenty of busted 2 poles and only rarely seen a busted 4 pole. If you're building your own speaker cables 2 poles are a miserable end to manufacture or repair. 4 pole are much better and easier to fit. I'll also recommend tinning the cable ends before you fit them in the connector. That helps keep the twisted bare end from losing stray strands that may short on another conductor and it's also much faster to replace a cable end in the field.

[Ron K]

I just use the 4 pole ones for most applications since there's very little difference in price.

I use the 8 Pole on my amp racks and large cables and split the ends to 4 pole connectors. This way my main speaker cables are 1 cable with 8/ 10-12 ga. wires in it. Easy to make a 4-way splitter box or just wire 2,3 or 4 -4 pole ends onto the other end of the cable. I hate running all them speaker cables as separates!

[guitarkeys.com]

I just use the 4 pole ones for most applications since there's very little difference in price.

I use the 8 Pole on my amp racks and large cables and split the ends to 4 pole connectors. This way my main speaker cables are 1 cable with 8/ 10-12 ga. wires in it. Easy to make a 4-way splitter box or just wire 2,3 or 4 -4 pole ends onto the other end of the cable. I hate running all them speaker cables as separates!

Always looking for the easy way out

Jamie