The wire to the back speakers has been broken midway.
Is there a fix or do I just have to purchase a new cable?
One end of the of the cable has a 2 point pin that goes into the dvd player, the other end has the 2 strands that fit into the back speaker.
I have thought about buying an extra cable, splicing it and connecting it to the broken area but do not want to lose sound quality.
any advice would be appreciated
If it's just the speaker cable, it's an easy fix. There are two strands of wire for each cable. I would cut the cable at the break, seperate the strands carefully about two inches in each direction, either by pulling them apart, or by using a knife, being careful to preserve the insulation around each strand (sometimes pulling apart the strands will pull the insulation from one side or the other depending on how fragile it is - I usually just start the seperation with a knife, and then pull them apart slowly). Then you can strip back the insulation about an inch on either side of the break on each strand.
To strip back the insulation, take a sharp knife and cut through the insulation by cutting around the wire on each strand about an inch back in both directions being careful to not cut through the wire. A few of the strands won't make a big difference, but if you cut too much it may be best to start over.
Once you have about an inch of wire exposed on each strand, you can intertwine the wires to put them back together. Just hold the bare ends of each seperated strand side-by-side and twist them together. If you mix up which strands are which, mark one of the sides with tape or a sharpie to make sure you twist the right ends together. Usually there is a white stripe on the positive strand, or some other marking that runs the length on one side only, so that's a good guide for putting the right wires back together.
Once that is done, you need to isolate the bare wires from each other. I usually bend them parrallel to the cable in opposite directions, and then use electrical tape run between them and around each strand. Once they are isolated and not in danger of touching, use some heatshrink tubing around the whole patch to make it lasting and durable. It won't look pretty, but it will work just fine. You can find heatshring tubing at Radio Shack. Just slide a big enough piece to cover the repaired area on from the end of the cable without the connector, and then use a hairdryer to shrink the tubing around the patch. If you don't have a hairdryer, you can use a match or candle. Just be careful.
Alternatively, you can just wrap more electrical tape around the whole area in a diagonal, but tape isn't nearly as durable a patch as heatshrink.
Hope that helps.
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