whole house audio question

[jjamesjjones]

i have a new house that's prewired for whole house audio and i have some questions. I just bought a Aton 4 Room Audio Package that includes the in ceiling speakers keypad and Aton DLA 4 Router, (waiting on it to be delivered) its going to be connected to zone 2 of a onkyo 508 receiver. house has wall plates hiding cat5 and speaker wires. I know with the keypad i bought only use's the cat5 connection, what is the other 4 wire speaker wire in there for? also for kicks i connected a speaker to one of the in-ceiling speaker locations that location is using two wire...at the house-end its using 4 wire, i connected the four wire at the house-end to my receiver but got no sound, do i need to connect all four wires to the receiver? or do i need the keypad connected with the cat5 first?....i assumed i could just connect the cable and the audio would play with out the keypad..sorry for being long winded but im new to this and would appreciate any help.

 

[TLS Guy]

i have a new house that's prewired for whole house audio and i have some questions. I just bought a Aton 4 Room Audio Package that includes the in ceiling speakers keypad and Aton DLA 4 Router, (waiting on it to be delivered) its going to be connected to zone 2 of a onkyo 508 receiver. house has wall plates hiding cat5 and speaker wires. I know with the keypad i bought only use's the cat5 connection, what is the other 4 wire speaker wire in there for? also for kicks i connected a speaker to one of the in-ceiling speaker locations that location is using two wire...at the house-end its using 4 wire, i connected the four wire at the house-end to my receiver but got no sound, do i need to connect all four wires to the receiver? or do i need the keypad connected with the cat5 first?....i assumed i could just connect the cable and the audio would play with out the keypad..sorry for being long winded but im new to this and would appreciate any help.

What type of system was the house wired for? It sounds as if it was wired for a multi amp distribution system controlled with digital key pads.

At first glance it would seem this system is not wired for what you are trying to do.

So you need to find out who wired it and what their design aims were.

 

[MDS]

Typically the 4-wire conductors are wired to a location that would have a volume control and 2-wire conductors go from the volume control to a pair of speakers. Cat5 wiring is for phone or network although it can also be used for audio applications as well. Just because it's there doesn't necessarily mean that you need to use it.

For example, I have a 4-wire conductor and cat5 from my living room that goes to a wall plate in the master bathroom. In the master bathroom, there are two 2-conductor wires - one to each ceiling location intended to have a speaker. I'm not using any speakers in the bathroom but if I were to set it up, I'd connect the 4-wire conductor the originates in the living room to the receiver (zone 2) and the other end to a volume control in the bathroom. The outputs of that volume control would be connected to the two 2-wire conductors and to each speaker.

 

[jjamesjjones]

Thanks for the reply's.... The volume control that i ordered only connects via the cat five which runs back to a 4 room speaker control type router. it doesn't have connections that would connect to the speaker wires in the keypad box. So is it possible that i can splice the 4 wire that's in the orange case to the 2x wire cable in the keypad box?...i know i would splice the red and black together, but the four wire also has green and white cables...which is + and which is -

 

[jjamesjjones]

ok here's what i'm working with

 

[MDS]

Thanks for the reply's.... The volume control that i ordered only connects via the cat five which runs back to a 4 room speaker control type router. it doesn't have connections that would connect to the speaker wires in the keypad box. So is it possible that i can splice the 4 wire that's in the orange case to the 2x wire cable in the keypad box?...i know i would splice the red and black together, but the four wire also has green and white cables...which is + and which is -

From the pictures, it looks like you have to run 4 of the 8 conductors of the Cat5 from the keypad to the IR input on the DLA4 and 4 wires from the speaker outputs on the DLA4 to the actual speakers. Yes, you could splice the wires in the orange 4-conductor wire to the two white 2 conductor wires (follow the same color convention as indicated on the back of the DLA4).

BUT...how are you going to get the actual sound, which comes from the receiver, to the DLA4? The zone 2 outputs of the receiver would have to be connected to the 'amplifier input' section of the DLA4. Now if the DLA4 is in the same room as the receiver, it won't be much of a problem - just buy a short length of 16/4 speaker wire. If the DLA4 is another room, then you're going to have to fish another 4 conductor wire between that room and the room where the receiver lives.

 

[jjamesjjones]

Thanks for the help MDS, the receiver will be right next to the DLA4. Now all i have to do is wait on UPS to deliver the stuff.

 

[jjamesjjones]

Just for an update, I spliced all the wires together, and hooked some old house speakers up and they they played perfectly...Thanks again...UPS will deliver my equipment today.

 

[dklassen]

Hi I am hooking up a very similar system and found this thread helpful. The only thing i'm not clear on is the cat 5 cabling for my volume controls in each zone have 8 different wires but the hook ups on the back on my aton dhl4 only have 4 inputs what needs to be spliced together?

 

[jjamesjjones]

Hello dklassen just to report 3years in and my system is still working great(knock on wood lol). But for your set up you will only use 4 of the eight wires, you can just tape up the other 4 you dont use...for example on my set up I only had to use white/blue, orange, brown, and white/green. Hope that helps.