Bose Left, Right, or One Speaker Is Not Working

Bose speakers are known for their excellent sound quality and powerful performance, as well as for their versatile designs. Those who take their music, movies, and games seriously consider getting a set of Bose speakers a good investment. If one speaker is not working, it could affect the performance of your whole sound system.

If a Bose speaker is not working, one common issue could be a drained or faulty battery, especially in portable models. Ensure the speaker is fully charged. If it still doesn’t work, try using a different charging cable and adapter, as the issue might be with the charging equipment rather than the speaker itself.

Another potential cause for a Bose speaker not working is Bluetooth connectivity issues. If the speaker isn’t connecting to a device, try resetting the Bluetooth connection. Turn off Bluetooth on both the speaker and your device, then turn it back on and attempt to reconnect. This often resolves minor connectivity glitches that may be preventing the speaker from working.

Bose Left, Right, or One Speaker Is Not Working

Lastly, the problem could be related to the speaker’s firmware being outdated. Outdated firmware can lead to various performance issues. To fix this, connect the speaker to the Bose Connect app and check for any available firmware updates. Install any updates to ensure your speaker is running the latest software, which can often resolve operational issues.

This article will talk about the things that possibly went wrong with one of your Bose speakers when its companion speakers are functioning properly. It will guide you through some troubleshooting steps and the things you could do to fix the problem. Knowing how to do these yourself can save you time, money, and effort if the issue can be easily fixed at home.

About Bose Speakers

Bose has several types of speakers and audio solutions available. These include portable smart speakers, soundbars, home speakers, stereo systems, surround speakers, computer speakers, and even home theater speaker systems. These high-quality products were designed and developed to improve your overall audio experience, whether you listen to music, watch your favorite Netflix show, check out YouTube videos, or play video games with friends.

While some products are single-unit items, stereo speaker systems, computer speakers, surround speakers, and home audio systems are typically made up of two or more speaker units. Multiple-speaker systems allow you to get well-rounded sounds from at least two directions, making everything sound realistic and as if you are right in the middle of the action.

Left Speaker vs. Right Speaker

Whether there really is a left and a right speaker does not matter unless these speakers are a mirror-image pair. Generally, this means that you can switch or swap the speakers and that each of them will function the same way as the other. You only determine which is left and which is right through their marks or labels on the packaging and from your listening position. Without the L and R labels, these speakers are interchangeable.

Ordinarily, both speakers will produce the same sound. However, it’s different if you are talking about a stereo sound. Stereo sound is recorded via two or more microphones, and you will hear it as part of a bigger picture. In a stereo system, the left and the right speakers can give off the exact same sounds or two different sounds.

Simply put, if the sound is stereo quality, some sounds at a certain point may come from your left speaker, and other sounds will come from your right speaker.

Swapping the Left and Right Speakers

Switching your left and right speakers in a stereo setup means you will hear the right channel on your left speaker and the left channel on your right speaker. And you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference because the speakers are essentially similar. The only thing that makes these speakers different is their plugs.

The left speaker is designed to plug into the central audio system’s output for the left channel, and the right speaker plugs into the right channel. Using an RCA cable would do the trick and would allow you to interchange speakers.

Bose Left or Right Speaker Is Not Working: Troubleshooting

When you say one of your Bose speakers is not working, it means your left or right speaker is not producing the same sound quality or volume as the other one, is producing a bothersome hiss or static sound, or is not producing any sound at all.

To find out if your left or right speaker really is not working, you need to do some troubleshooting. Here are the things you need to do:

Check the Wires and the Connection

If your Bose left speaker or Bose right speaker is not working, the first thing you need to do is to check the entire length of the wire to the speaker in question. Make sure there are no scratches, no cut parts, and no tangles or folds on the wire or cable. If there’s any, then there’s a good chance this is what’s causing the problem, and the cable will have to be replaced.

If there aren’t any, then try moving or jiggling the wire of your left or right speaker while it is on. A change in the hiss or static sound coming from the speaker as you try to jiggle the cable indicates that it may be because of some damaged wires inside.

Or it could also be because of a loose connection to the central speaker or the media device. Damaged inner wire and loose connection would need a cable replacement.

You should also check the output plug and make sure that it’s snug and tight and securely connected to the back terminal of the central speaker or the receiver and amplifier. Check the input cables for your media devices, too.

Try to unplug and replug the cables of your connected media devices and of your sound system. If the speaker is still not working after trying to adjust the connection and after unplugging and replugging everything, then it could be something else.

Swap the Speakers

Try to swap the left and right speakers. If the left speaker is the faulty unit, it would expectedly not work even if you plug it into the right channel.

However, if you initially thought that the left speaker does not work but actually works well with the right channel, proceed to checking the right speaker. If the right speaker does not work with the left channel after the swap, then it is the left channel that’s not working.

Copyright article owner is ReadyToDiy.com for this article. This post was first published on December 4, 2020.

This proves that both left and right speakers are functioning properly, and the problem has something to do with the stereo system instead. In such a case, it is either the receiver or the amplifier that needs to be checked further.

Connect With Other Media

If everything you have checked so far points to one of the speakers not working, you need to check it with other audio sources. If your speaker system is connected to your TV, then connect it to a CD or DVD player and see if the speaker still doesn’t work. If the speakers work with your CD or DVD player, then your TV might be the problem, or at least the cable connecting it to your TV.

However, if one of your Bose speakers still doesn’t work with a CD or DVD player, then it is a problem with the speaker.

Bose Left, Right, or One Speaker Is Not Working: What to Do?

If your left or right speaker is not working and the troubleshooting steps above indicate that the problem is with the speaker, you can try to do the following:

Check the user manual. Check your Bose device manual for some non-standard and non-intuitive configurations that you may have missed.
Get help from Bose community. Go to the Bose community for tips and guidelines. The community is a forum where you can ask questions with regard to problems and issues relating to your Bose product, and experts and fellow users will give you advice on what to do.
Seek service and repair. You can contact Bose’s support team for service and repair. They have support resources categorized into regions and countries. You will be able to find warranty information and even locate a store near you.

Final Thoughts

If your Bose left or right speaker is not working, there are several possible reasons for it. It may even turn out not to be a speaker-related problem at all. The important thing is to know how to troubleshoot problems yourself so you don’t have to call in a professional repair guy.

More importantly, you should know that you can turn to Bose for problems related to its products. It has a dedicated community of experts and experienced users to help you fix issues with your speaker. You can also contact its global service and repair team.