99 Escort Radio no sound from speakers

[Skinney1]

Anyone have an idea why no sound from speakers? Plugged in power plug behind radio, antenna, and speaker plug. No sound. Anyone want to tell me where to start for the why no sound? Thanks

[tripletdaddy]

You'll need a multimeter. You have power to the radio and it lights up? Is it factory or aftermarket? Try looking for signal leaving the radio to the speakers. Has anything been moved around in your car? Moved seats? You may have to trace your speaker wires for connectors. Some radios have a reset button, but I expect you would have to pull it from the dash to get to it. If it easy to pull the speakers, I'd test for signal there. Also check for speaker continuity and resistance. Typically they are marked with the speaker resistance (sometimes the radio on the back says this too), eg. 8, 16, 24 ohms. From there test for continuity of the two wires from the radio to the speakers. If something wears or cuts into the wires they can ground out the signal so that you get no sound. Good luck. Let us know what you find.

[Davescort97]

Thanks triplet daddy for the post. I learned something. Speaker resistance by ohms. I ordered some headphones that had a high impedence. They were not putting out much sound. Had 32 ohms impedence. Now I know to only get those that have 16 ohms impedence or less. I appreciate it. Davescort97.

[tripletdaddy]

My recollection is you want to match the impedance or ohms that the radio or amp is rated to the speakers' rating. Thinking more than that about it would make my head hurt too much right now to tell you much more. I think if you have an 8 ohm radio and a 16 ohm speaker, it will not be as loud as an 8 ohm. But, a higher ohm speaker will not be ruined as easily so will last longer, especially if you like to run at full volume all the time. In fact, you probably have noticed that some speakers will sound lousy when the volume is really high or at max, that means the speakers are being overdriven and need to be a higher impedance if you want to run them at that level because the amp is too powerful for it. That didn't hurt too much...what's that smokey smell?