Do speaker wires matter

Mike - the speaker wires are a little over 9ft.

Lowrider - this is the first time I’ve hooked them up (both sets of speakers). I used the same speaker wires for both.

tvad - that sounds like a good plan! Thank you for the info!

b_limo will definitely do that first! Thanks!

Berner- they’re in a carpeted finished basement. Ceilings are 6’10” with 2 ducts running across and covered with drywall at about 6’1” height l. The basement is about 40ft x 25 not sure of square footage. There is alot in the basement to interfere with the sound as well ie. Furniture, drum kit, DAW on desk with monitors etc... cluttered.  I do keep the speakers about 2 ft away from the wall. 

There is only 1 red and black on each speaker. 

I currently have my Marantz going into 2 JBL HLS810 bookshelf speakers and they sound much clearer than the Mirages in terms of hearing the highs.

Thank you stereo5. Will try that out!

Tvad- I do but they’re not putting out much. I literally have to press my ear up against them but I hear all 4 of them.

Yogiboy-I don’t believe so. Only 1 left and right/speaker if I’m understanding you correctly.

Marqmike- thank you.

I also wanted to mention that I do own a Crown Base model PB-2 I used for my sound system for live music. It’s maximum output is 400 wpc into 4 ohms at 1khz with no more than 0.1% THD. (I have no idea what most of this means)

Would using the Marantz as a preamp and going into this be an option or would you advise against it?

Thanks so much for the feedback! So it’s sounding like if I were to get my hands on the proper amp and speaker wires to go with these speakers, they would sound infinitely better?  If so I would like to consider it. As I had mentioned before, there is sound coming out of the highs, mids and lows - just not too great. It’s sounding like I still wouldn’t at least hear the quality of these speakers at a very low volume with this amp because of how little the power it has to deliver. Just confirming that before opening up the speakers, taking out the tweeters and sending them off to be sweetened or rebuilt.

i am very new in this world so please excuse my ignorance.

I appreciate all of your insight and knowledge. 

Ive never taking a risk like this in picking up speakers like these, or any for that matter. A friend suggested I do it. He knew the previous owner who is sadly no longer with us and they wanted someone to take them. I went for it and am hoping they don’t need to be repaired, but if so I will probably look into it.

Wow... thank you so much for all of this insight! I now realize that I am dealing with way more factors than I could have imagined. Elliott,  I will think on using the crown powerbase 2. I have a friend who will also let me borrow his amp. Thank you for the detailed instructions on how to set that up.

missstl thank you for explaining the difference in sound the mirages put out vs others. There’s so much I am unaware of on this topic. I will see how it performs with a different amp.

My speakers are in my carpeted finished basement with 6’10” h ceilings. There is also some clutter as well which could interfere. I don’t know the exact square footage. The most wide open section approximately 42’x 20’.

Thank you Bob540!:)