Speaker wires

[Ozz]

The Direct TV service guy unhooked all my wires from the surround sound and left it out on my couch without marking anything.
I haven't looked at it, but I imagine I will have to have some sort of diagram.
Any ideas?

[BB_TX]

You will probably have to remove the wires from each speaker and ohm out each pair to figure out which is which.
I had to do that when I replaced my home theater/DVD/surround system. I carefully removed each wire, labeled it, installed the new system, and connected the wires as labeled. But when I did a speaker test, they did not test correctly. Apparently they had been miswired from the factory. Ohmed out the wires, attached them correctly, and sound test was good.

[Ozz]

Thanks, Good advice, I was hoping someone with an 06=07 Montana had the wires recorded. Nothing is ever simple....

[ARJ]

You can use a 1.5v battery and connect each set of wires to it while listening to a "clunk" from whichever speaker the wires go to.

You should just touch the wires to the battery momentarily. Sorry I wasn't more explicit.

[Ozz]

I was wondering what kind of 'noisemaker' I could use that wouldn't fry the tiny speakers.

[Art-n-Marge]

I would have called the DirecTV installer back and made them fix it. I hate when these clowns treat their stuff as gold and everything else as junk, like theirs is the only way to be entertained. They do not have a right to disable anything that was working before they got there unless they are replacing one for one. They should have labeled things and put them back. I've made sure that's the M.O. for other service personnel and it works when they know you are watching.

I am certainly capable of debugging stuff with wiring since I have the knowledge and experience, but if some wire jockey is gonna come in and whirlwind MY wires, he'll get an education from me that will last a lifetime on how to treat customers and their private property. They were invited to ADD their stuff, because I have invited them into my house or property for considering their company, but my stuff still better work unless they are replacing that thing.

Sorry about the rant, but over the years I have battled too many of these flakes to take it. I am fortunate that I have had great success to get this kind of service remedied because I am in the right, and they're not - never treat me like an idiot, or you'll learn the idiot is not me. Again, I'm sorry about the rant, but this is a major peeve. I'll go get some cookies and milk to calm down.

Anyway, good debugging techniques, but they could have saved you lots of your precious time with just a little consideration and service on their end. Ummmm. No cookies in the house, but this Danish will do the trick!

[Ozz]

Art, I understand your frustration. You were right on and I didn't see it as a rant, justified anger.
I was just glad to get them out of there. As a serviceman, I can see what strengths and weaknesses these guys have. I had some video surveillance experts out to fine tune my 8 cameras and help get us on the Internet so I can see my home and yard while we are on the road. They could not get the Internet deal done, Sue spent 4 hrs. on the phone Thursday with AT&T, then some clowns we paid $49.00 to that kept transferring her, then disconnecting her. (I got the $40.00 back..) now my computer repair expert got involved at my request. AT&T will be here today to get the ball of twine untangled.
I told them if they couldn't get us set-up to come and take all the AT&T crap out of my house and I would go with whoever could solve this simple problem.
Now I am looking for cookies and milk,....

[firetrucker]

Ozz, if you've got a little radio or MP3 player, take a headphone jack and attach the speaker wires to it. Easy to identify which is which without hurting anything.

Bob

[Ozz]

Thanks Bob, an even safer idea

[2 for Him]

Hey Ozz,
Mine are color coded. Aren't the newer models?

[Ozz]

I haven't looked at it, but on yours are the wires coded to match the inputs?