Speakers not working right... any ideas?

I have a 2006 Honda Civic with a Boss 480BRGB in it. The factory speakers in the back went out, so I replaced them and they were fine for a while. Then the front speakers started acting up. Now, I have some Boss Extreme speakers—front ones are 250W 4-ohm and the back ones are 300W 4-ohm. After installing them, the back right and front left speakers aren’t working at all, while the other ones work perfectly. I checked with a multimeter, and the ones not working are getting 12V, but the ones that do work are getting close to no voltage. I wanted to see if anyone here has any ideas on what it could be.

You’re on the right track with the multimeter, but what you’re describing doesn’t add up. If there’s 12V and ground, everything should work unless there’s an internal short. If it’s not working with 12V, you likely have a bad ground. For the other one, it’s impossible for a 12V electronic to run off of nothing, so if it’s working, there’s power and some form of ground. Just be careful, you might have sent it to a neutral by accident, which can cause problems. Before you do anything else, check with the multimeter again—your results seem off.

@Leith
I checked again, and the ones that are working are getting 0.40V.

Teal said:
@Leith
I checked again, and the ones that are working are getting 0.40V.

Wait, does your car have a factory amp, or did you add one? A stereo and even some factory amps may not have enough power for those speakers.

@Leith
I think I just have the internal amp in the Boss 480.

Teal said:
@Leith
I think I just have the internal amp in the Boss 480.

That’s probably your issue… I can believe there’s 0.4V, but there’s no way that amp can push those speakers. It’s only about 10 watts. I’m still amazed the speakers were working with that low of voltage. Just making sure, you tested it with AC, right? DC won’t give you useful results for speakers. Also, did you run the negative back to the original speaker wire that goes to the radio? Not like grounding it to the door or anything?

@Leith
Yeah, I tested with AC, and it worked when only one speaker was running. All wires have their own channel, so they lead back to the radio. I don’t know much about this stuff since I’m a tele-data electrician, but I didn’t get any negatives.

@Teal
Good, just making sure you didn’t ground the negative wire to somewhere else. So, if I had to guess, the stereo just can’t handle all that. Those speakers are probably around 30-40 watts each, and that stereo only puts out 10. The math doesn’t add up.

@Leith
I see now. So with the speakers I have, what would you recommend for a head unit? Could it be the 24 AWG wires that came with the speakers? Are they too small?

Teal said:
@Leith
I see now. So with the speakers I have, what would you recommend for a head unit? Could it be the 24 AWG wires that came with the speakers? Are they too small?

You’re probably going to need a small amp. Some head units might output enough wattage for your speakers, but they’ll be pretty expensive. To be sure, wire up each speaker individually (or maybe just a couple) and make sure they all work. If they work individually, then lack of power is the issue. For amps, figure out the RMS ratings of your speakers. Boss tends to overrate their speakers, so those 250W or 350W speakers are probably closer to 40-50W. You’ll need to figure out how much wattage each speaker uses and go from there.

For amps, I’d recommend something like a 200W JL or Memphis amp. Boss makes decent stuff, but their numbers are exaggerated. A head unit alone won’t cut it because they’re not made to push that much power. In the end, the head unit is just an interface for your system, so you’ll need an amp for anything beyond stock speakers.

For brands, if you go with an amp, look at Memphis, JL, Alpine, Kicker, or Eclipse. They’re good, and they’ll last. For a budget option, Pioneer is decent. JBL! is overpriced, but solid quality.

Planet Audio is a good cheap brand too, but stay away from Sony and MTX if you can.

Teal said:
@Leith
I see now. So with the speakers I have, what would you recommend for a head unit? Could it be the 24 AWG wires that came with the speakers? Are they too small?

Also, the 24 AWG wire should be fine if it’s going back to the head unit.

Teal said:
@Leith
I checked again, and the ones that are working are getting 0.40V.

You’ve got the radio playing? I’d be surprised if the speakers were running off of the voltage you’re reading.

@Leith
Yeah, the radio is on, and that’s what I’m reading.

Also, Boss Audio is not the best… no offense, I know it’s cheap and a lot of people used it in high school, but it doesn’t last long. You might have got bad speakers, or they just gave out. Boss speakers can hit hard, but they don’t last. It’s possible that the speakers are just bad.