Enclosing Speaker Backs in Plastic?

[fastpakr]

I think you'd be hard pressed to find an aftermarket radio that wasn't designed for four ohm speakers.

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[RangerFabWorks]

im thinking you have one of those cheap pioneer stereos without the cd player. those things sound like total ass. Let us know what manufacturer the radio is and what model number. ill bet money its a crappy head unit.

 

[Curious Hound]

On a side note when I cross the two probes on the ohm meter (as RonD suggested), it doesn’t go down to zero. It goes to 0.7. Is this an issue?

That's probably close enough. It's hard to say since we have no idea what brand and model your meter is. Some analog meters have a zero adjustment dial for that. You would hold the leads together and adjust the dial until the meter reads zero. Otherwise, it could be due to old battery in the meter, poor connections for the leads or possibly the quality of the meter. Your readings sound reasonably good, though. Were not looking for brain surgery precision here.


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[lvwill]

Just read through your post. Is the plastic behind the speakers sheet plastic or a hard rigid plastic bowl looking cover? If it's sheet plastic what you're hearing is probably the plastic vibrating and distorting the sound. Speakers vibrate and move air to make sound and really should be in a very rigid enclosure.

 

[rangerenthiusiast]

im thinking you have one of those cheap pioneer stereos without the cd player. those things sound like total ass. Let us know what manufacturer the radio is and what model number. ill bet money its a crappy head unit.

It’s an aftermarket Kenwood and seems fairly up-to-date tech-wise (it’s Pandora-compatible, has a USB port, has Bluetooth, can be wirelessly connected to a cell phone, iPod, etc). So it may not be the most expensive unit out there, but I don’t think it was a cheapy either.

 

[rangerenthiusiast]

Just read through your post. Is the plastic behind the speakers sheet plastic or a hard rigid plastic bowl looking cover? If it's sheet plastic what you're hearing is probably the plastic vibrating and distorting the sound. Speakers vibrate and move air to make sound and really should be in a very rigid enclosure.

It’s sheet plastic, but I’m doubtful that’s the issue. Only one of the old speakers had plastic behind it and they all did the same thing. It’s really obvious that the speakers can’t be driven much at all without breaking up.

 

[rangerenthiusiast]

I think you'd be hard pressed to find an aftermarket radio that wasn't designed for four ohm speakers.

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Here’s the online manual for my head unit:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/437768/Kenwood-Kdc-Bt652u.html#manual

Tried to plow through it to find the information on ohms supported by the unit, but it’s buried in there somewhere and I have to leave for work. I’ll look again when I get home tonight, but wanted to update the post first. Thanks to everyone who’s chimed in and tried to help me with this so far. You all rock.

 

[RonD]

Kenwood KDC-BT652U is rated for 22watts at 4ohms so that's not the problem

Chances of having 4 bad speakers is not 0 but high odds, so most likely the radio is bad.

If you have another speaker, bookshelf style or even loose, hook it up and see what it sounds like, doesn't matter if it is 8ohm, won't hurt anything, higher ohms is OK just reduces power output at speaker, i.e., 22 watts at 4ohms would be 11watts at 8ohms, but no distortion