My dad recently bought a new 40" LCD HDTV, and he has these big lumbering dinosaur speakers that he swears he was able to hook up to his last TV, which was purchased shortly after the industrial revolution. We've had no luck hooking them up with this one though. The speakers are the big analog kind, the ones you hook up to stereo systems, they have two wires joined in a plastic coating ending with a plug with two short metallic plugs. Would we need a receiver to hook these kinds of speakers up to a new HDTV, or is there any kind of cheaper solution?
All speakers are analog. You have a + positive and a - negative. You can buy adapters or cut/splice new ends, just make sure you connect the output of the amp +/- to the input of the speakers +/-. And if it's only speakers in the box, even that doesn't matter, they would just be "out of phase" (which might sound better). The only thing to worry about is your amp. Check your amplifier specs, and see what the ohm rating is for the speaker connected. If the amp calls for an 8 ohm speaker, don't connect any thing less (ex: 4ohm), or you could damage your audio amplifier.