Testing Outdoor and Indoor Speakers

[Kjesse]

I hope someone can pitch in to put me on the correct path.

Our house (~20 years old, we bought 2 years ago) has two outdoor speakers. They look to be in working condition with no obvious breaks. The outdoor speakers' wiring terminates in the house to 2 banana plugs, and I can tell the wire indoors is the same wire outdoors (Green shielded as a pair, one white, one black wire). At the termination point inside, the wiring is tagged "outdoor". The speakers do not appear to have separate power supplies, but its possible those connections are buried and I can't see them (hard to explain).

I plug the banana plugs into the receiver (I know the receiver is outputting sound), but get nothing in the speakers. I'd like to use my voltmeter to test the wires, and I think the method is... disconnect both speakers from the wires, twist them together, then use Ohms as a measurement indoors with one lead to each wire to see if there is a circuit? The problem i could see is there must be at least 200 feet of wire... would a volt meter be powerful enough to measure the circuit? Is this the right thing to do? I don't even know if the speakers are wired in parallel or series because the cables are buried.

To add to this issue, there are also two speakers inside the walls in the dining room. I also can't get them to work plugging them into the receiver. There is a dial in the dining room which is for volume, it has no effect. The termination point is at the same location as the outdoor cables, but they are labeled "Dining Room".

Any suggestions how to proceed to isolate the problem and know I'm doing it right? The prior owner has said they did work, and said there are no switches or volume controls for the outdoor speakers. I'd rather not spend a grand having someone come diagnose something I should be able to figure out with some guidance. Thanks!

[keratosis]

Yup , you are going down the right track. First check line continuity.
A good multimeter should work fine.
Or you could save the hassle of fishing new wires through and go wireless.

[Jedi Ninja]

Start with leaving the speakers connected and measuring the resistance across the banana plugs to see what that reads. Then use a battery (AA or 9V) to see if there is movement in the woofer when you apply voltage to it.

You say you only have one set of banana plugs (mono)? If they have wired 2 - 4 ohm speakers in parallel, then it is possible that your receiver's protection circuitry is engaging and not powering the speakers.

[DownhillGoat]

Just a thought - sometimes speakers wired like that have a volume switch/slider that looks like a dimmer switch. Might want to check for that.

Also, before using a voltmeter you could directly hook up the speakers to an receiver omitting the existing wiring.

- - - edit - - -

Aaaand didn't read where you said there was a volume switch in the dining room.