"I also recall a friend’s child tried to play a PB&J sandwich in their VCR."This reminded me of something unrelated to speakers.
If you have a CD/DVD player or something like that and you cannot find some CDs/DVDs in their cases, take the cover off, remove all 10 CDs/DVDs that you daughter managed to push in the player without you noticing, put the cover back on. It is surprising that these players play with a bunch of discs crammed inside (not on the tray, though).