Extended speaker wire, now no sound

[Dervacumen]

Well, I had to extend the wire on my amplified speakers a foot, so I cut the wire, added a 1 foot section, made sure the polarity was correct and plugged the 3.5mm jack back in to my soundcard.  I have no sound.
When I run my speaker test (software that generates white noise) and I turn the volume all the way up to max, I can very faintly hear white noise coming from the speakers.
When I plug another set of speakers in to the jack the sound is fine, so something is amiss with my speakers.

The speakers have a power cord which is plugged in and the power light on the speaker indicates they have power.  The speakers are of the 2.0 variety, with the power and 3.5mm cords running from one speaker, and a second wire running out to connect the second speaker, typical of most older style computer speaker systems.

So what will cause this?  The way the speakers are mounted in the cabinet, it's very hard to make sure the volume adjustment is all the way to maximum, however the volume is controlled by a wheel and I know that if I turn it to the left I can hear the faint white noise diminish, and when I turn it to the right I can hear the white noise increase slightly.  So I don't think I have the volume on the speaker down, at least not to the point that it would be almost inaudible.
When I load a ROM I hear nothing.

Possible that I have something wired incorrectly?  The wire I cut is the one that runs from the 3.5mm line-in jack on my sound card to the first speaker.  I would have thought I could just extend this like any other wire I extend.  Two conductors.
Duhhh.

[kegger]

Take a good look at the wire it self, if the control for the volume is in line with the wires then those speaker wires may be special and contain possibly more then one and can possibly be shielded. I ran into the same issue with a set of Cambridge soundworks 2.1 for my cab and ended up ordering a whole new volume control cable because there was no way to actually splice the tiny wires I cut which really looked like one normal speaker wire.

[MonMotha]

There should be 3 conductors in that wire.  One may be a braid/foil shield being used as the ground conductor.  It would need to be extended as well.

Special extension cables are made for this and can be had for a couple bucks online.  Would be far easier to just use one of these.

[severdhed]

There should be 3 conductors in that wire.  One may be a braid/foil shield being used as the ground conductor.  It would need to be extended as well.

Special extension cables are made for this and can be had for a couple bucks online.  Would be far easier to just use one of these.

+1

there is a wire for left, one for right, and one for the ground

[Dervacumen]

There should be 3 conductors in that wire.  One may be a braid/foil shield being used as the ground conductor.  It would need to be extended as well.

Special extension cables are made for this and can be had for a couple bucks online.  Would be far easier to just use one of these.

+1

there is a wire for left, one for right, and one for the ground

That's what I've come to realize, and should have known since it makes sense.  I was wondering what that thin thread was.  Apparently it was the ground.  Now that's gonna be an interesting task.  And I thought my ribbon cable was small.  I wish my eyes were better equipped to deal with such small things nowadays.

Replacing the cable isn't really an option in this case.  It's either fix this one or shove a new set of speakers in the cab somewhere. #&(%^%&!.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

also with those super thin wires, it's not unheard of to have a single thread get caught up among the other, effectively shorting out the cable. You'll get the same type response from it, a faint signal at high volumes.

Might check continuity on the cable and see if it's not shorted between + and -.

[Dervacumen]

Interesting.
I got a better look at the wire, and each side appears to have another shielded wire inline, for a total of 4 conductors.

In one wire there is another smaller white shielded wire, and in the other wire there is another smaller red shielded wire.
I can only find 3.5mm extension cables that are for stereo, so I guess three wires.  Do I need to resort to extending all four individually?  I mean, I can do that, just a lot more fine detail work and a lot of messy wires.

Any thoughts?  Maybe I should just use a piece of telephone wire since it's got four conductors?
I'm not overly concerned with high volume sound quality as this machine is only going to play a few simple games with no need for high fidelity soundtracks.

[severdhed]

the red and white wires are the left and right positive wires... the other two are grounds and can be tied together

[JustMichael]

I was curious why you didn't try using a stereo extension cable before cutting the wires?

[Dervacumen]

the red and white wires are the left and right positive wires... the other two are grounds and can be tied together

I believe you, I've just never seen so much ground wire before.  The red and white are super thin, the ground is then apparently what I've always seen as regular speaker wire - braided copper on each side.

I was curious why you didn't try using a stereo extension cable before cutting the wires?

Honestly I've never run across a cable I couldn't just extend.  Not to say there aren't many examples of this, just I've never tried and failed with one.  Especially speaker wires.   And with hundreds of feet of various wires and myriad connectors laying around gathering dust, I would have preferred to use the $9.00 frickin' dollars on a nice six pack of good beer.  Yes, I could get an extension cable online cheaper but when you're up against a time constraint (X-Mas is now two days away) I didn't have the luxury of getting a cheapo and waiting.  I guess if I had done the wiring a month ago I could have gone that route, just didn't anticipate it being a problem.  Speaking of which, I've been waiting 23 days now for my inexpensive composite video cable for my wii.  Apparently it's coming from Hong Kong.  The website said 10 days.
Live and learn.

[severdhed]

you should have gone to monoprice.com

[Dervacumen]

So thanks to everyone.  I now have working speakers.

Unfortunately, I've seem to hit a more significant bump.  My Minipac seems not to be recognized by my machine.  I'll start a new thread.