audio problem (front speakers dont work) 99 dx

[cibrlx01]

i put my ear up to the front speakers after i balanced all the volume to the front channels

the front drivers, does not work at all
the front passengers, works at a whisper, meaning at a good volume where my rear speakers are well heard, i hear...a whisper coming out of this speaker, it would not be heard over the wind going around the car...

i have no idea if i am even supposed to have speakers in the rear passenger and rear drivers side doors, but i am preety sure theres nothing coming out of there either

there is an aftermarket kenwood deck in place of the OEM cd player
so,

Questions:
1)why do you think my front speakers arnt working? bad wiring? pull from it?
2)also, how hard is it to take off the door speakers? should i let professionals do it? or is it easy enough?
3)i hear a distortion when i turn my sound up (i have already ordered new speakers because of it), just wondering, what are the chances this might be bad wiring? it sounds fine at around 18 volume level, but bad at 24 (think of 18 as music just above talking level, and 24 as music at jamming level ;) )

thanks for the help

[chuyler1]

You don't have speakers in the rear doors. The doors have grills because the wagon version (wasn't in the US in 99 but was available over seas) didn't have a rear deck so all Proteges got the same rear door panels with speaker openings.

The only way to diagnose this is to start messing with things and troubleshooting. First, check the speakers. Removing the door panel is pretty straight forward. I'm sure someone has a how-to on this board but if you just grab a phillips screwdriver and take your time, you'll figure it out eventually. Once you get the door panel off, remove the speaker and test it on your home stereo to see if it works. if it doesn't, there's your problem. Do the same for the other speaker.

If the speaker(s) work fine, the next thing to test is the wiring. There is no easy way to do this but basically you need to pull out the head unit and start swapping around the wires for front/rear left/right and see if everything is working. You know the rears work fine so try swapping front and rear speaker connections. If the rears continue to work while the fronts don't, then you will probably have to run new wires to the front speakers. If the fronts start working but the rears don't, the headunit amp is fried (or possibly the fader is set incorrectly).

Hopefully this is enough to get you on your way. FYI, if you need to find out more information about your head unit such as a wiring chart or instructions on how to change the front/rear fader, you can download the instruction manual from Kenwood's website.

[sam1]

^^^what he said. if i were testing the front speakers, i would just unplug them and hook them up to the rear speakers wiring, since the rears work fine. if it works, then my money would be on the wiring (although it could still be the head unit, like chuyler1 said), if it doesn't then its your speaker.