Two speakers, one channel

January 24, 2007 7:20 PM

My left computer speaker — part of an Altec Lansing ATP3 set — is going on the fritz. Is there anything I can do?

I just noticed this problem tonight. The left speaker, er, basically doesn't work; if I hold it up to my ear there's just a quiet hiss. Occasionally it comes back to life, but never for very long.

When I started poking around, I noticed that the cable for this satellite was veering off at an angle right as it came out of the base unit. I tried straightening it out and otherwise fussing with it, with no real results. It's not visibly damaged but I'm wondering if something's wrong inside. It's a thin cable and I've had similar "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" problems with things like it before. The cable is built into the satellite so replacement is not trivial, at least.

I'm open to any suggestions about how I might fix this without too much cost — fixing the cable, somehow finding a replacement satellite, whatever. Thanks!

posted by brett to technology (4 comments total)

How about the stereo mini-plug cable between the PC and the base unit? I've had similar problems with that cable. Do you have a spare to try?
posted by DarkForest at 7:30 PM on January 24, 2007

That is definitely a damaged connection, and if it's inside the satellite speaker you (or someone with soldering skills) can probably repair it easily if you can open the speaker up without destroying it. The speaker contains nothing more than the speaker and possibly a frequency filter, so any damaged connection should be easy to find. The cable running out from the satellite speaker is a mono cable, so it has only two wires inside it and should have the standard mono stereo plug on the end. I the cable itself has been damaged, any first year engineering/physics student or shop dude should be able to solder a new cable on in a flash. To isolate the problem, find another 4 ohm (marked on the back of the speaker) computer speaker with a mono input and plug it into the woofer. If you get sound, the problem is in the satellite speaker or its cable, and you can fix it or throw in any other 4 ohm 6 watt rms speaker. If you don't, try DarkForest's suggestion, and if that doesn't work, the woofer needs to be opened up and inspected, or you need to just give up and replace the unit. My money is on the satellite speaker or cable...
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 8:02 PM on January 24, 2007

If you troubleshoot things like this very often, a cheap multimeter will make finding a bad wire or connection much easier. It sounds like you will need to repair/replace the jack, a portion of the speaker wire, or the connection between the speaker wire and the bad speaker. Should be hard to do, providing there is a way to open up the speaker in question.
posted by TedW at 6:50 AM on January 25, 2007

Shouldn't be hard to do.
posted by TedW at 6:51 AM on January 25, 2007