Pre-wired Connections Are Confusing and Don't Seem to Work Properly

[Dasen Luo]

First, I want to thank Kevin S for your kind help.

The wire coming out of the hole for the surround-back-left is a 4-conductor wire (see the attached photo), and when I connect these 4 conductor lines to the surround-back-left and surround-back-right speakers in conjunction to the counterpart wires connections at the receiver, they start to play together with my front speakers. All the other wires each from the surround-back-right and surround-left & -right are 2-conductor wires (see the other photos). I did not peel off the coating at the tip of the 2-conductor wire from the surround-left hole, but it is a 2-conductor wire nonetheless. None of these 2-conductor wires appear to have direct connectivity with the wires at the receiver’s end.

Based on what Kevin S kindly explained, I am starting to realize that the setup of the wires coming out of the holes are not supposed to be as straightforward as I thought. If I understand correctly, it seems that one wire at the receiver’s end is not necessarily correspondent to one wire at the speaker’s end, at least not directly. Somewhere in between, some of the wires need to be interconnected to one another. Am I right?

If I am right in understanding your general concept, my next question is how to make these inter-wire connections. As you can see from the photos, there is nothing like a jumper from any of these holes.

Another question: According to the diagram you attached, the wire coming out of the hole for the surround-right speaker is supposed to be a 4-conductor wire, but the wire actually coming out of this hole is a 2-conductor wire. Is anything missing there?

Thanks!

 

[highfigh]

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Is that a Ken Smith bass in your photo?

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

Is that a Ken Smith bass in your photo?

Off topic - PM sent.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Kevin S]

First, I want to thank Kevin S for your kind help.

The wire coming out of the hole for the surround-back-left is a 4-conductor wire (see the attached photo), and when I connect these 4 conductor lines to the surround-back-left and surround-back-right speakers in conjunction to the counterpart wires connections at the receiver, they start to play together with my front speakers. All the other wires each from the surround-back-right and surround-left & -right are 2-conductor wires (see the other photos). I did not peel off the coating at the tip of the 2-conductor wire from the surround-left hole, but it is a 2-conductor wire nonetheless. None of these 2-conductor wires appear to have direct connectivity with the wires at the receiver’s end.

Based on what Kevin S kindly explained, I am starting to realize that the setup of the wires coming out of the holes are not supposed to be as straightforward as I thought. If I understand correctly, it seems that one wire at the receiver’s end is not necessarily correspondent to one wire at the speaker’s end, at least not directly. Somewhere in between, some of the wires need to be interconnected to one another. Am I right?

If I am right in understanding your general concept, my next question is how to make these inter-wire connections. As you can see from the photos, there is nothing like a jumper from any of these holes.

Another question: According to the diagram you attached, the wire coming out of the hole for the surround-right speaker is supposed to be a 4-conductor wire, but the wire actually coming out of this hole is a 2-conductor wire. Is anything missing there?

Thanks!

Yeah,your missing some wires.Either a junction somewhere in the ceiling or the contractor or drywaller left them above.I would do what Wayne said and cut those holes bigger.I would get some low volt cut-in rings.HERE also at Home Depot.
so you can see or feel above the ceiling for any missing wires.I would really be bugging the guy that wired it and get him out there and figure it out for you.Have you disconnected ALL wires/separated them,including the front L/R and center and traced out every one?Maybe start from scratch,one set at a time.

 

[Ponzio]

what a cluster-u-know what. this why u should never hire an electrician to do any type of audio/video cabling. and it looks like he/she used cheapo thin gauge security wiring to boot.

is the cable loose? meaning, can u use it as a fishing cable to actually install new speaker wires? if so, fish 2 new pairs of speaker cables back to the hub (location of ur AVR). then it's a matter of getting one of the speaker cables over to the adjoining site. if u cut out both locations for the new junction boxes that should leave enough room for u to fish the other speaker cable over and terminate it in the new junction box at that location. also leave about 3 to 4 feet of slack of the wires up in the ceiling just in case u may want to move them in the future. good luck.

 

[Kevin S]

what a cluster-u-know what. this why u should never hire an electrician to do any type of audio/video cabling. and it looks like he/she used cheapo thin gauge security wiring to boot.

is the cable loose? meaning, can u use it as a fishing cable to actually install new speaker wires? if so, fish 2 new pairs of speaker cables back to the hub (location of ur AVR). then it's a matter of getting one of the speaker cables over to the adjoining site. if u cut out both locations for the new junction boxes that should leave enough room for u to fish the other speaker cable over and terminate it in the new junction box at that location. also leave about 3 to 4 feet of slack of the wires up in the ceiling just in case u may want to move them in the future. good luck.

Easy on us Electricians,I don't think Dasen said anything about an electrician doing the cabling though most do not know how to wire an A/V setup,probably a GC (jack of all trades,master of none).I would never have ran any speaker array using 4 wire to one location and split it to 2 wire to another.All speaker runs should be dedicated back to the source.
It does suck to have a setup wired and not be correct and no help from the one who did it.
All suggestions are good ones ,just take your time.

 

[Dasen Luo]

Easy on us Electricians,I don't think Dasen said anything about an electrician doing the cabling though most do not know how to wire an A/V setup,probably a GC (jack of all trades,master of none).I would never have ran any speaker array using 4 wire to one location and split it to 2 wire to another.All speaker runs should be dedicated back to the source.
It does suck to have a setup wired and not be correct and no help from the one who did it.
All suggestions are good ones ,just take your time.

I want to thank all of you who have made illuminating comments. I don’t really know the contractor, only that he is a relative of the builder and was said to be a specialist for this type of work. I am inexperienced myself, and am afraid to do much additional work myself on the setup. At this point, I’ll start with bugging the contractor as much as I can and see what will happen. I’ll keep this thread open in case there will be some interesting story to tell, or I’ll have to do some work myself after all. At any rate, with what I have learned from this thread, I’ll be a bit more confident when I start to bug the contractor. I have been unsure whether the contractor had set this up in a cryptic way deliberately so that he could charge me more if I were to ask him for additional help, or he simply did not do a good job. The more I followed this thread, the more I believe that the latter is more likely to be the case. Thanks for the help!

 

[Ponzio]

Having built my own house, as the general contractor, and helped others … mostly friends & family; I worked in the telecom/data field for 30 some years … in a consultant capacity (gratis). I’ve seen this happen all too often when it comes to electricians and when it comes to telecom/data/audio/video issues. Many an electrician has passed himself off as a specialist in these areas when in reality they don’t have a clue and compound the problem by installing the wrong/cheaper/defective wiring and connectors. Legally you’re on tenuous ground, unless you specifically documented which parts to use in the contract or have a witness or two that can confirm he made false or misleading statements, especially the “specialist” claim. No pro audio/video installer worth his salt would have used that wiring.

Don’t be shy. It’s your money he wasted.

 

[Dasen Luo]

I finally had my connection problem resolved last summer. The vender who initially did the prewiring sent someone to my house and pulled out the hidden wire ends and finished the connections using jumpers. I want to thank people on this forum who had taught me about the basics of prewiring, and with the information I had learned here, I sounded more compelling when I urged the vender to finish the connections.

Now that I have prewiring issues resolved, it is time for me to install my speakers. I previously thought I would install ceiling speaker mounts for my Onkyo speakers, but after I learned from various sources, including from this forum, I have changed my mind. I now plan to install in-ceiling speakers, and wonder anyone here could offer me some advice.

I have an Onkyo 7-Channel home theater system, and will stay with this system at least for the time being. My home theater area is in my basement, and the side of the basement with the prewiring covers approximately an 15ft*15ft area. This is an arear starting from the wall to the holes of surround back speakers in one direction, and mostly from wall to wall in the other direction. It is “mostly from wall to wall” because there is also a small window well area next to the end of this 15ft*15ft area. The whole basement is open without any wall separating the three areas described. The attached figure depicts the layout of the basement.

My current plan is to install four in-ceiling speakers that are comparable in price range to my Onkyo system (about $900 when I bought it 7-8 years ago). If possible, I hope these speakers will allow me to adjust the directions of the speakers to max the surround sound effect. I know this is not exactly the forum for speakers, but since people here are so kind and also appear to be knowledgeable about everything related to the setup of home theater systems, I thought I may post my question here as well. Any of your input would be greatly appreciated.