I am looking to get some speakers to mount in-wall for my family room.  My house is pre-wired to allow 2 rear speakers and 2 front speakers in the ceiling.  I figure I will put the sub-woofer below the TV in the cabinet, and the center channel above the TV. I am not particularly interested in getting the best sound, just something that is reasonable.  I have used my TV speakers for the last 5 years so at this point any improvement is good.  I already have a receiver (mid range Yamaha unit) from a previous sound system, that has a separate Dolby digital unit. ... View more

Symptoms The cat chewed through the wire on one of my earbuds. Is there any way that I can repair it? Thanks. Diagnosis You need to attach a new plug. Solution The good news is that chew-through at the plug end is relatively easy to repair -- you just need to attach a new plug to the existing (now shorter) cable. For starters, you need a knife or scissors, a match, and a soldering iron. You will also need a 3.5mm stereo jack plug. A replacement jack plug like this shouldn't cost you very much. Unscrew the case and you'll see three terminals to which you'll reattach your cable. Preparing the cable A headphone stereo cable has two cables running through it, one for the left channel and one for the right. These are usually colored red and green. Each of these cables is surrounded by copper wire (the ground). 1. Strip the red and green cables back so you have about a half inch to an inch of bare wire. 2. Keep the red and green wires separate, but twist the two sets of copper wire together so you have three wires instead of four. 3. Strike a match and briefly heat the ends of all three wires to burn off any insulating covering. If you don't do this, the wires won't make a proper electrical connection and your headphones won't work. Attaching the cable to the plug Unscrew the case of your jack plug and you'll see the three terminals for the three wires in your cable. Solder the three wires to the three terminals. The copper-colored ground wire (shown orange in the diagram) goes to the large outer terminal (which often joins to the cable clamp at the top). The green wire goes to the central terminal. The red wire goes to the remaining terminal. If you get the red and green wires mixed up, your headphones will still work but the left and right channels will be switched over. It can be quite tricky to support the jack plug while you're soldering it. Some words of warning: Don't hold the jack plug while you solder it. The heat will rapidly travel through the electrical pins and burn your fingers. Also, make sure the three wires are well clear of one another when they're soldered. If they touch anywhere, you'll either lose sound in one or both of the headphones or get mono instead of stereo. That's all there is to it. Hope this helps. ... View more