Solved! Cutting up rca (mono) cable to speaker wire for project?

[RikZ]

Hi,
For a while I've had some ugly, but decent sounding speakers and instead of buying new ones I thought I'd try to make a new enclosure for it.
They're pc-speakers with onboard controlls, but it's in quite an odd shape so I decided to just use the speakers and connect it to an standard bare wire red and black cable output. I thought instead of buying an amplifier for it, let's try to hack the controlls to a speaker wire. Now I've run into a problem, one cable to speaker is working, but the other speaker was connected to the main-speaker (with all the controlls and power) via a mono rca cable. I've read online that cutting the rca plug off and using the wires as normal speaker wires should be able to work, but it doesn't.
Both speakers are confirmed to be working and when when connecting the wire(from which no music is coming) to the speaker u can hear that it's connected and getting powered.

Any help would be massively appreciated, thx.

 

[americanaudiophile]

If the speakers have controls then they probably have an amplifier built into the main speaker. It would have a power supply or cord in that case.
That means the input to the main speaker was meant to be line level audio not the output of an outboard amplifier. If you want to connect a powered speaker input to a speaker level output you would need a speaker to line level converter.
The output to the second speaker would be speaker level since the amp for it is the other speaker. Using an RCA connector for speaker level signal is cheaper than using a speaker level connector so you will see this in a lot of cheaper gear (HTS or mini stereo systems).
If you wanted to drive the speakers themselves directly, bypassing the internal amp, you would not be able to use the controls of the main speaker.
Connect the speaker level output of the amp directly to the drivers in the main cabinet bypassing the controls and amp. Connect the passive speaker directly to the other channel of the external amp. You can just cut off the RCA plug.

 

[RikZ]

If the speakers have controls then they probably have an amplifier built into the main speaker. It would have a power supply or cord in that case.
That means the input to the main speaker was meant to be line level audio not the output of an outboard amplifier. If you want to connect a powered speaker input to a speaker level output you would need a speaker to line level converter.
The output to the second speaker would be speaker level since the amp for it is the other speaker. Using an RCA connector for speaker level signal is cheaper than using a speaker level connector so you will see this in a lot of cheaper gear (HTS or mini stereo systems).
If you wanted to drive the speakers themselves directly, bypassing the internal amp, you would not be able to use the controls of the main speaker.
Connect the speaker level output of the amp directly to the drivers in the main cabinet bypassing the controls and amp. Connect the passive speaker directly to the other channel of the external amp. You can just cut off the RCA plug.

Well, that's a whole lotta talk I don't understand, thx for the effort tho.
Just to clarify some things(not sure if it will help), one set of cables was connected straight to the circuit-board(the one which produces sound) and the other one had the rca plug between it. So can u please in simpler and shorter terms explain me why this shouldn't work.
Thx in advance

 

[americanaudiophile]

If you are just putting the entire powered speakers into different cabinets you would only be using speaker wire to connect the passive external speaker to the cabinet that has the circuit board in it.
The input to the circuit board is line level and would not use speaker wire.