Hi there folks,

I received a Sherwood S5500 II yesterday via fleabay-- after hooking it up, everything seems to work out, and I'm pretty happy.

What would make me even happier, is learning how to hook up the speakers properly! Here's a diagram of what the arrangement is:


* * * * * * * * *
16 8 4 I__I gnd 4 8 16
R L

That's exactly how it looks. As you can see, on the left side of the panel, there are the 16,8 and 4 posts, followed by two posts labeled 'right speaker', then a ground, then the other 4,8, and 16 posts labeled 'left speaker'. To make things more confusing for me, a red wire is sticking out of the panel next to the series of Right posts and was hooked up to the 8ohm post.

What I did, was to connect the Right connections to the two 'Right speaker' posts, then just hooked the Left connections to any two of the 4, 8, and 16 ohm 'Left' posts. I did this until an (apparently) even balance could be heard between the two speakers.

Questions:

1) If the right speaker has its own posts separate from its batch of 4, 8, and 16 ohm posts, why doesn't the Left?

2) My speakers are 8 ohm impedance. How should I be hooking up the speakers? 8 and 4? 8 and 16?

3) What is the function of the red wire attached to the Right 8 ohm post? No sound came out when it was detached, even when the other speaker wires were hooked up.

4) What is the ground post in the middle of the panel for? I can see another ground near the phono hookups-- is this other ground used to ground the entire amp? If so, what should I be grounding it to... splicing the power cable!?


Thanks for the answers in advance-- the amp sounded pretty nice, but I achieved this through trial and error-- I'd like to know the proper way to set it up.

Best,
Andre

Whoops! It looks like my diagram was edited automatically for economy's sake. You can imagine that each * has a number under it; the two I's that are connected had the label 'Right speakers', and the 'Left Speakers' label was printed under the 4, 8 and 16 on the right.

hi andre,
i hope this helps you.
16 8 4 I__I gnd 4 8 16

the red wire goes to the corrosponding tap of the impedence of the speakers your going to use. the I &I will be for your right speaker wires. the I on the left side will be for your positive wire and the one next to it will be for the negative of your speaker.the left will be hooked to the gnd and corrosponding speaker tap.the red wire is for the feedback and should be hooked to corrosponding tap to match your speaker impedence to the left of the right speaker connections.hope this helps.

Sounds good! Thanks!
Andre

old post but very handy

old post but very handy

yeah it should be a sticky.

Here's what I did:

Oops, mine's a 5500 II.
Layout when you're looking at the back:
right left
spkr impedance spkr
+ - 4 8 16 G 4 8 16

So, for mine:
right speaker red to +, black to -
red impedance wire to 4, (8), or 16, depending on the impedance you want to select to present to your speakers. I picked 8. That's why there are parenthesis around the 8.
left speaker black to G, red to 8.

The website pulls everything to the left. The left speaker connection is on the far right, which makes sense because you're looking at the amp backwards. Your speaker connections are G and what you set the red wire on in the impedance selection section in the center. I set it on 8.


This is the 5000 layout someone else had.
16 8 4 I__I gnd 4 8 16