Help Plz: New HK AVR 340 and speaker static

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my issue.


I'm a newb to most of this, so please bear with my descriptions.


The house I bought had a built-in entertainment system with 5 speakers. The house was built in 1995. The speakers, Bose 102P Flush Mount speakers, all seem the same. The speaker wire is red/black old style. Don't think it has any shielding and I'm not sure what wattage/power it can really handle. The receiver was a Pioneer VSX 453. I have Comcast (old Adelphia) as my cable system and could listen to a cable music station thru my system or just thru my TV. My DVD player is a new, but low-end Panasonic DVD-S29. The system worked, but seeing that everything was now 11 years old, I decided some upgrades were needed.


I've just received my HK 340 AVR. I hooked everything up and for a moment it worked great, but within just a few minutes I then started getting lots of speaker static. I jiggled the speaker wire behind the AVR and it would momentarily get better, but then go back to static.


I then unhooked everything from the AVR. I powered down the cable, DVD and TV. The only connections to the AVR is the FM antenna and the center speaker wire. The static still exists thru the speaker. It's constant and pulses a little.


So...


Is it my receiver?

Is it the speaker wire?

Is it the speakers?


What's the easiest way to figure this all out?


Thank you very much.