Car Stereos: Head has power but front speakers have no sound., inch speakers, nissan pickup

Question
Hello,
I have a 1993 Nissan pickup that I am having trouble installing a system in. When I bought the truck it did not have a head in it so I bought a Dual XML8100 head and two kicker 6.5 inch speakers for the doors. I ripped out the original wiring and ran brand new speaker wire directly from the head to the speakers. The only factory wires I used were the (hot)power, and the memory power. After connecting everything up i am getting power to my head because it turns on and go through all its functions but I cannot get any sound to come out of my speakers. Now while trouble shooting I hook different speakers to the head and still no sound I took off the crimp connectors I had used and hooked them up wire to wire and still no sound. I bought a new head and hooked it up and i still cant get any sound even with the new head. I am lost. I did not use a harness, everything is wire to wire using brand new speaker wire, and everything is completely grounded out. Nothing I have done has made any sound whatsoever come out of my speakers can you please help me!

Answer
Hi Chris,

Sorry about the delay in answering your question.  From what you're describing, my best guess would be that you have a shorted speaker wire.  Most after-market head units have a built-in protective cutoff, which will kill the sound to all the speakers if there's a short circuit on one of the speaker outputs.  This could be caused by a speaker wire that's pinched against chassis metal at some point along the wire run.  If you're not using the rear speaker outputs, you'll need to be sure the wires are insulated; if they're in contact with chassis metal or even the metal body of the head unit, it would trip the protective circuit.

If you have trouble finding the problem, you can try testing the speaker wires with a multimeter,  using the continuity function to test for continuity with a metal part of the dash.  

Hope this helps!

Brian