Bzzt. Click. Hiss. Help!

First of all, I’m not aware of any changes to stereo audio hookups at the speaker level, at least no standard ones. Between sound equipment, i.e. amplifiers and CD players or DVD players, there are some kinds of updated connections, digital and optical stuff. But I’ve helped a little with some HD setups, and at some point, the connection to the speakers still seems to break out to pretty normal connections. I know there’s some desktop stuff that works through USB, but I haven’t seen anything equivalent in the world of home audio. A quick – very quick – scan of the interwebs doesn’t reveal anything I’ve been missing, but I haven’t purchased any real stereo equipment for almost 10 years, either.

I’d be willing to bet that there’s nothing seriously wrong with your stereo stuff. Are the hookups those bare-wire terminal thingies, or are they RCA jacks? Those bare wire terminals always were a little janky, and RCA jacks are a minor, but definite step up. As long as the finickyness isn’t in the stereo itself, i.e. a loose or cracked back panel, wires are pretty easy to repair or mend or fuss with.

The whole deal with audio wires is to get as much metal touching as much metal as possible. After 10 years or so of use, there’s a decent chance that there’s some oxidation at the connection. Places like Radio Shack and big music stores usually carry a spray product called DeOxit; since it’s a spray, maybe it’s trickier to get in California, I know they’re funny about some stuff like that. Anyway, it deoxidizes stuff. Music stores have it so when volume knobs on guitar amps or the jacks where you plug cables in start to get noisy, it’ll clear off the crud so the metal makes better connection to metal. Radio Shack has it because DeOxit sounds technical and it comes in a spray can. Anway, spray the connection with a Deoxidizer and use a Q-tip or something on the exposed areas. It dries quickly and doesn’t leave any residue, so it’s not like you have to get it off quickly or anything, and even just spraying it on helps some, but a little scrubbing can help. (The old Atari 2600 cartridge trick was to use a pencil eraser to scrub off oxidation. Same idea.)

If you have one of those wire-terminal clip dealies, you might consider just clipping off a bit of the wire and stripping it back a little so there’s fresh metal, the fresh connection may just do the trick. 

If there’s a short in the wire itself somewhere, like it’s been bent and broken inside, it’ll only connect when the wire is bent “just so” so the broken bits are touching enough to pass the sound through. So if it gets moved a little, it’ll move the broken connection enough that it pops in and out of working. Just swapping the wire out may be the move; I’d be surprised if $1,000-in-1998 stereo equipment had permanently attached wires, so this could be a cheap and easy move. Personally, do some wire swapping to narrow down the problem and get really clear if the problem is in the wire or the speaker or the stereo. I do stuff like that anyway so I feel like I’m accomplishing something, so you could just skip it.

Anyway, if you already know where the short is, it’s actually pretty easy to splice wires in the middle to clip out the bad spot, and even if the wire’s permanently attached to the speaker, it’s probably not too hard to take the back off and redo the whole thing; the audio connection to a speaker’s not particularly tricky or anything, and to repair a break in the middle, you don’t even need to solder or anything, just strip the wire away, twist it good, and make sure it’s taped up in such a way that the 2 wires don’t touch at all. It’s not like it’ll blow your house up if they touch, but it’s not a pleasant sound. Some decent elelectrical tape is handy to have around anyway.

Best, 

rpm