zimdogg Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 I moved into a home that has lots of speakers in the ceilings. Here's what I've discovered so far: Basement - 5 ceiling speakers, all 5 sets of speaker wires comes to an entertainment center where I can hook up to receiver. - no help needed here Living room - 5 channels that all lead to a cabinet for my receiver - no help needed here This is where I get confused: Office - 2 speakers in ceiling Master bedroom - 2 speakers in ceiling In these two rooms the speaker wires are behind an outlet style plate on the wall that also has cat5 cable as well. Near the back deck there's a blank wall plate that has 2 speaker wires and a cat 5 cable again. In a hallway I have a blank wall plate with something behind it that I've yet to identify In the basement I have a "central point" that has a bunch of cat5 cable coming to it. Now I'm assuming the basement is where the central brain of some sort would be, but I have no equipment down there, and then that feeds my audio signal to these blank wall plates in different parts of my house where they might have separate volume control equipment attached to them which would also attach to speaker wires. Never really done anything like this. When we bought the house I assumed the master bedroom and office speaker wires were piped into our main living room area where the 5 channel surround wires pipe into, but that's not the case. There's also lots of coax cable that isn't for television cable/satellite in place. For example, there's a coax cable run from my receiver cabinet in my main living room to another cabinet. I'm assuming they used this to hook up a subwoofer and used the coax cable with RCA's screwed onto it to carry the signal. I don't really know. I realize pictures are worth a thousand words and I don't have any available at the moment, but can get more based on any specific criteria needed if it's helpful. Any thoughts? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 Yes, it sounds like whole house and deck were prewired for sound and highly probable not all outlets were used. Would be interesting what speakers they are. Likely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 Yes, it sounds like whole house and deck were prewired for sound and highly probable not all outlets were used. Would be interesting what speakers they are. Likely they are all the same but that is not sacred. Finding out the model # safely for 2 or 3 may tell us something. A larger grille may indicate a subwoofer. Coax near a shelf near where wires terminate may indicate a TV hooked to satellite/cable. Could be the basement or garage where junction box originates. What if anything do you want to do? Thanks @zimdogg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zimdogg Posted November 11, 2022 Author Share Posted November 11, 2022 I pulled the grills off some of the speakers and couldn't tell what they were. I was hoping they were Klipsch (I have a lot of Klipsch speakers) but they don't appear to be. Honestly, they don't sound all that great and I don't plan to use the ones in the basement for anything other than maybe atmos and rear surrounds. What I'd like to do if the expense is manageable is to use the office/bedroom speakers mainly. It seems like these are set up to get power over ethernet, or at least use some sort of knob with an internal amplifier unless for some reason the speakers have amplifiers built in (which I don't think they do). There weren't any speakers on the deck but I've since added the Klipsch AW650's there and control them through a separate receiver that I wired into the basement. If I could control those with some sort of volume knob outdoors that would be great, but using my phone is fine too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 After finding a junction box, see what wires are marked for location and notice how they are routed. Guess your home does not have an attic. Going to guess alot of cat5... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 What wire did you use for your deck speakers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zimdogg Posted November 11, 2022 Author Share Posted November 11, 2022 I do have an attic but our home is a 1.5 story so there's bedrooms over about half of the main level and no really good access. I'll poke around a bit more when I get home and come back with pictures and better explanations. Seems like they wanted to have some sort of central control with individual room control for volume based on what I can tell. Then separate from that they had the living room wired for 5 channel surround, and basement wired for 5 channel surround. All 5 speakers are in the ceiling in the basement, and I have them hooked up. I have 2 speakers in the wall in our living room, and they're the surrounds. Then 2 more are wired really high up in the room and there's a center that's wired. I have access to all of these wires and have speakers hooked up to them. It's the deck, master bedroom, and office that seem to have some sort of independent control but I don't know where they'd get their music source from. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 Previous owner likely used a dc voltage set of speakers using cat5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zimdogg Posted November 11, 2022 Author Share Posted November 11, 2022 6 minutes ago, billybob said: What wire did you use for your deck speakers? I used this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084H6F869/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 Alright, will wait, thanks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zimdogg Posted November 11, 2022 Author Share Posted November 11, 2022 This unit is what it seems like would go on the walls in place of my wall plates, then I'd need some sort of amplifier set up in the basement providing the audio source to each of the locations where these volume knobs would be. Obviously Pyle sucks, but this is what I'm thinking the idea behind the setup is like. https://www.amazon.com/Wall-Mount-Control-Knob-Wall/dp/B000V52CP0/ref=sr_1_9?crid=L4H2WBQ6VIJM&keywords=audio+over+ethernet+volume+knob&qid=1668192904&sprefix=audio+over+ethernet+volume+kno%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-9 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 What amp/receiver do you have now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 6 minutes ago, billybob said: What amp/receiver do you have now? It will take being able to look at the back of a ceiling speaker for brand, and model if not on grille. May be a switch on rear and voltage /Ohms 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zimdogg Posted November 11, 2022 Author Share Posted November 11, 2022 (edited) 15 minutes ago, billybob said: What amp/receiver do you have now? I have a few. I have an older Pioneer Elite VSX-42 hooked up to my 5 channel setup in the living room (its independent of all this other funky stuff) I have a Yamaha TSR-7850 hooked up to RP280FA mains, RP450C center, and using whatever in-walls I have in the basement as surrounds at the moment. I have a Rotel RA985bx integrated amplifier I use to power the deck speakers (AW650's) as well as a pair of KG5.5's in my workout area that I A/B select depending where I'm listening. I wired the deck speakers directly to the Rotel unit and am not using any of the previous owners "stuff" for that. I don't even know where the speaker wires would be out on the deck that might already be pre-wired, they're not exposed. None of these are hooked up to anything that might power the Office/Master bedroom/"pre-wired" deck edit - Almost forgot, I also have a little old technics receiver powering a pair of KT-LCR's out in my garage. Edited November 11, 2022 by zimdogg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 I would check Monoprice as they have some nice whole home offerings. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 Wow, alright! So you supplied the speaker wire for the deck and ran it? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zimdogg Posted November 11, 2022 Author Share Posted November 11, 2022 3 minutes ago, billybob said: Wow, alright! So you supplied the speaker wire for the deck and ran it? That's correct. I punched a hole in the exterior wall into my basement and ran it all down there with fresh wire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 Am going out for a bit and will check back on your progress in a bit. This may need to go to PMs to not overwhelm forum, lol... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 4 minutes ago, zimdogg said: That's correct. I punched a hole in the exterior wall into my basement and ran it all down there with fresh wire. Creative...cool ! Do you use surge protector? 2 hours ago, Retired said: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted November 11, 2022 Share Posted November 11, 2022 Where are you located BTW? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.