Car Stereos: car speakers, ohm speaker, speaker wiring

Question
hey i previously wrote you on my amp and subs, but i spoke to you recently
on my speakers. i did what you told me, use the multimeter and check the
speakers, all the speakers have power going to them. you said something
about the voicecoil?

what else can be wrong with it? what can i do to fix it?

Answer
Hi Nemo,

If you followed the instructions in the last answer, you probably would have detected if you had a speaker with a shorted voice coil; that was the purpose of measuring the resistance between each positive and negative speaker wire.  A shorted voice coil is an internal speaker defect where the (+) wire is effectively connected to the (-) wire without running through the length of the voice coil first.  It would turn a 4-ohm speaker into something closer to a 0-ohm speaker.  When you tested the resistance on your speaker wires, were they all about the same, or was one speaker much different from the others?  

If a speaker or speaker wiring problem isn't causing the sound failure, it indicates a problem inside the head unit itself.  Here's one last test that should finally rule out a problem with the speakers: disconnect all the speaker wires at the head unit, except for the left front wires.  See if you get sound with only one speaker connected.  If you do, then start re-connecting the speakers one at a time until the sound cuts out again.  This should tell you which speaker is causing the problem.  If you don't get sound with a single speaker, then disconnect that speaker and connect a different one.  If you get sound with only the second speaker connected, then the problem may lie in the first speaker.  If you still can't get the sound back with the second speaker connection, then it's likely that your head unit needs to be serviced.

Good luck!

Brian