QuestionI purchased some indoor/outdoor speakers off of ebay and I hooked them up with some Wal-Mart speaker wire. It was hard to tell which wire was which when I hooked them up. I figured if it was hooked up correctly, they would play, if not--then they wouldn't.
After hooking them up, the sound was pretty good and within minutes there was some static. Eventually, you could barely hear the music. I would turn the volume up and the sound would barely increase. They are 200 watt and 4 ohm speakers. I tried reversing the wires and nothing improved. What do you think could be wrong? Thanks for your help.
AnswerHi,
In most cases, speaker wire is never the problem. I do have a couple of suggestions, however.
I personally don't use anything smaller than 14 gauge wire, especially on high wattage speakers and/or powerful amps.
Another thing to check is if the output impedance of your receiver / amp matches the speaker impedance (4 ohms). You definitely want these to match. Some solid state amps are able to handle a range of values (maybe 4 to 16 ohms), but if your amp is rated for a specific output, make sure the speakers match.
Outside of those steps, you might have an issue with the voice coils on the speakers (info on that can be found here: http://www.djsociety.org/Speaker_1.htm)
Check online, of at a local music shop for reputable speaker techs in your area. Troubleshooting something like this is rather difficult to do through a forum like this, as it's better to have some test equipment handy and the speakers available.
