Sound level way too low on my new speakers

I have those exact speakers and they’re great (I’m not an audiophile but they are leagues better than the Logi speakers I had.)

I have some speakers (on a shelf in the basement near all the other obsolete electronics we have) that used a cable to connect the left and right speakers to each other. It’s a long shot, but is that something that is supposed to be hooked up on your set up?

It is supposed to be and in fact actually hooked up on my setup. If you look at the top right on my picture above, that’s what those two black and red wires are. If there is a problem there- and there could be, mind - I wouldn’t have expected to get sound out of the passive speaker at the very least. But I did in the sound test.

Eh, I got nothin’ then. Um, well, anyone need some Centronics cables? I have those.

oh, think we’re getting somewhere

What’s the setup?

PC line out lead that splits in two, white one goes to Left speaker and has switch on back set to L and red one goes to right speaker with switch set to R?

my right monitor

my left speaker has the white lead in.

Where do the passive out on the CR3 go to?
Another set of non powered passive speakers?

Or do you have Line out to L and R in one speaker and the second speaker joined to first via passive? I think that’s wrong

Try putting white lead in the 2nd CR3 speaker L input and set switch to L on that one. Forget passive out connection. It can be L or R, not both.

This is what I have, and it’s what the diagram indicates. Those red/black wires in the top right are what connect the passive speaker. Note that the switch for L/R is not something that can be both; it’s one or t’other. I had it set to Right but then I realized last night I was basing that from my POV. Swapping it to L does not help.

Note that this is the current placement:

The one with the sticker and the power switch is the “active”, where the power is going in and what connects to the computer. Obviously, because power switch. But I assume it’s the L speaker there. Although again swapping it didn’t help.

I had read some of the commentary online about people jiggling the switch, but that didn’t do anything for me.

oh I have 2 active speakers. I guess your right is active and powered, left is passive and not amped*.

Bugger, thought that was the issue there.

it sounds like the amp in the powered speaker is at fault if you are getting low volume on both.

edit: *yes, just looked at cr3 manual.

The reviews indicate these speakers break at the drop of a hat so perhaps it’s hardware issue. Most reviews said they lasted a year or so and then broke

I guess confirming pc/Windows and Line Out is fine with headphones or other speakers is worth doing.

Like Armando was saying, it’s a male/male aux. If you had a boom box or a shelf system (perhaps next to your Nintendo DS, your NOW! That’s What I Call Music compilation CDs, and your spindle of blank CD-Rs) with a line in headphone port, you plug that cable between the line out and line in sockets.

I made use of a similar cable when I wanted to take my mp3 playlists and tape them to cassettes so I could listen to them in the car.

Or, conversely, you could plug something into the line in on your MB.

I feel attacked.

:D

I was so sure that 100 pack of multi colored discs senior of college was really gonna pay off.

Sigh. When I was a college senior, there were no CDs. I did have a fair number of cassette tapes, though, some with Dolby noise reduction and some with dbx!

My mate spent a tenner on a metal tape to record his mixtape on and would proudly show it off, handing it to us and saying “feel the weight on that”

As a child our family music player was a sideboard sized thing with a record player, radio (with stations written on dial) and an 8-track. i dont remember my parents owning any more than a dozen 8-track cassettes mind you.

Ah, the 8-track. Riding in my friend’s AMX Javelin, listening to Stairway to Heaven on 8-track. Heresy! They split the song in the middle so you had to flip the tape right when you were getting your groove on.

You had to flip 8-tracks? I thought I remembered reading how they’d go KA CHUNK and play the other side. I never actually played one myself.

Well, that’s how I remember it. It’s been a while, but I dimly recall that you had to flip them, though maybe there were fancier players that did it on their own? Either way, flip or ker-thunk, there was a really obnoxious break in the middle of songs sometimes.

I don’t recall ever flipping an 8-track, but the recordings were broken up into 4(?) programs and you had a button that could change to the next program with a rather chonky ker-thunk sound as the playback head was repositioned.

It may well be that. Then again, my friends never maintained their cars or their stereos very well, so it’s also possible it just broke!

Thread derailment aside, i am curious to know if testing other speakers/headphones/leads got any closer to the cause of the issue.

Cleaning the port did not help (at least I blew air in and around it).

Cannot find the headphones with the whichever plug on them that would plug in.

Did order some Creative Labs Pebble 2 speakers, which were super cheap. Problem is the same with them (if worse, they don’t produce quite as much volume but TBH I was sort of expecting that).