Stereo set up, need some help

Wife bought an all in one home stereo. The ones with an AM-FM radio, LP record,CD, and cassette player. I have everything hooked up except there are 2 jacks. Instruction manual only identifies them as RCA line out jacks. What are these for? Are they for auxiliary speakers or to add other components to the stereo?

Those would be preamplified signals that could be used as inputs to a power amplifier, recording equipment or computer. Pretty much anything, but you can't use them to directly drive speakers as the output level is too low.

They're called "RCA" jacks because RCA introduced that particular connector style many years ago.

I used to really be into audio and huge amps n speakers years ago, I once had a Dynaco Dyna Kit Stereo 70 Tube Power Amp I built myself from the kit (they are in demand as classics nowadays) and like a fool traded it in college for a solid state receiver grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Ive seen Stereo 70's on E Bay for several hundered dollars. I forget if I has a PAS 3X or a PAT 4 Pre Amp??? McIntosh made some high end power amps also

Anywho now those lightweight Bose (Dr Bose of MIT I believe) systems sound as good as when I had huge heavy sand packed cabinet Wharfedale speakers with 15 inch woofers.

Mark is right, although the unit you have (maybe 5 or 10 watts at most???) will drive it own small speakers, if you take the RCA Line Outs and run them through say a 50 to 100 watt power amp then you can drive bigger speakers especially if you like more bass and/or need more volume.

NO they are not for aux speakers but for like I or Mark mentioned. If the unit had provisions for the output of other small devices to be powered by it, those would be RCA Line IN inputs versus your Line Out Outputs.

Ahhhhhh the good old days of Stereo and Tube Amps and huge heavy speakers

John T

I did a stint selling audio equipment, and this thread reminds me, sometimes we called them pre-amp outs LOL ! I remember all the basics, did quite well with it actually, used to sell Bose, 901's had a nice spiff on it, as they called it, (commission).

We had a switching board, to connect any speaker to any receiver, we had amplifiers connected too. I remember one Onkyo 500 watt amp, and I switched it to I think bose accoustimass, little cubes, 2 each side and I think the needle was up as far as 250 watts continuous, somewhere around there before distortion, clipping.

More or less high end homeowner audio, Denon, Onkyo, Bose, Advent, was lots of fun, I used to do installs on the side.

I think like out would be jacks with a small signal that would go to a tape recorder especially if they are RCA jacks. All my RCA jacks are sheilded cables. The speaker out are not sheilded. You may try using line out to go another power amp or they to go to cassette input.

BTW, I still have my 45 year old pioneere 727 amp and sterio system. It has a turn table, open real, altec speakers, and later I added a cassette. It sounds great, except I failed my last hearing test.

When we were young, we had good hearing. Now I old, I can't hear much over 2K HZ.

I too was once a bit of an audiophile (though nothing compared to a close friend of mine).

I still have a Pioneer SX-1980 (270 watts RMS, both channels driven into 8 (?) ohms, with (very low THD). The thing weighs nearly 90 lbs.

I've also a set of AR-3a speakers bought new in 1973 and a set of Dynaudio speakers made from a kit in 1982. I had all of the speakers resuspended a few years ago.

Still have a Dual 731Q turntable too but cartridges are becoming very difficult to find and they have a limited life. I made the mistake of selling the Dual 1229 about 25 years ago.

Dean

I still prefer the older gear. It was well built, often overbuilt, used good quality components and didn't rely on digital manipulation to make a so-so speaker sound acceptable.

Oh, and those outputs, they are still refered to as pre-outs because they run off the pre-amp and are controlled by the volume control of the unit.

ditto what mark and others said.

line out is literally that. a pre- amped line out to send to some other 'line in' level device.

-10dbv is line level for most consumer devices ( about 1vrms )

+4dbu is the line level for most pro gear. ( about .77vrms, or 1mw power across a 600 ohm load )

Thanks for all the replies. My 35 year old Zenith shot craps, so the wife bought the first stereo with a turn table she found at the store.