Bought a house with 9 or 10 speakers built in. Need help getting them going.

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bigpapaskills

Audiophyte
Hey guys, I'm hoping someone could point me in the right direction in getting all of this set up. I've never really messed with audio, let alone a whole mess of speaker wires. Apparently the last owner of this home was a big A/V guy and installed speakers in the ceilings and walls, as well as volume knobs in each room.

I have the Yamaha RX-V677 7.2-channel Wi-Fi Network AV Receiver with AirPlay, but I'm not sure if this is even compatible with the setup I acquired. The local A/V store in my area wants to charge $100/hr to get everything hooked up. Would this be worth avoiding the headache of getting things set up or do you think it's possible for me to get this done?

Also, if this isn't the place to post, does anyone know of any other subreddits or forums that may be helpful? Thanks so much.
 

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HTfreak2004

HTfreak2004

Senior Audioholic
Let the crap shoot begin. Hopefully everything was labelled if not you will have a bit of Tristan’s error to figure out which wires output to each speaker. Start with your receiver and use any radio station. Use any amp Channel say right channel. Insert positive and negative if nothing try another negative until you hear which speaker is outputting signal. Label the wires and tape repeat process until you have labeled every pair. Be sure to have volume on each zone at around 50% so you can hear which zone the wires and speaker belong to! Not to hard with some patience
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
So, the first thing to do is an inventory of your rooms and list them out. Which room it is, and how many speakers are in each room. I have a huge system with 20+ zones in it, so I get things like this:
Family room - surround sound with video, 3.1 audio.
Kitchen - stereo, audio only
Morning Room - stereo, audio only
Deck - stereo, audio only
Garage - stereo, audio only
Playroom - stereo, audio & video

So, go through and make a list like that. Sounds like most rooms are stereo, but your family room may have a set of rear ceiling 'surround' speakers, and then you can use your Yamaha to provide 5.1 audio with you providing the front left/right/center speakers and a subwoofer. But, hard to know without that inventory list.

Then, you go through the process of identifying speakers. This can be done with a 9v battery, but if you are the DiY type, then maybe hooking up your Yamaha to a stereo pair (one pair at a time) and finding each speaker in the setup.

Speaker wiring should be coming out of the wall in pairs, or groups of 4 wires. If they are NOT labeled, you will want to label them so this never happens again. Red/black is one pair, white/green would be the other pair. Typically red/black is the right speaker in the room, white/green is typically the left speaker in a room. Red and white are positive, black and green are negative.

More photos of the wiring, the wall, and what that bundle in your hand is going to would be helpful. Don't need photos of the Yamaha, we can look up the RX-V677 online.

The RX-V677 is a 2-zone receiver which can run your main surround A/V zone, and send audio to a secondary zone. You will need some additional equipment, but you aren't there yet in actually needing that equipment, so first, let's just figure out what you have, then we will figure out what you need.

Yes, a installer can come by and figure it all out at typical professional labor rates, and it will take them a few hours to get it all figured out and properly labeled, but if you have time, then this is work you can do yourself.

Once things are organized coming out of the wall, one nice thing you can do is actually take it all back inside the wall and use wall plates and label them as to where every single connection goes to. That way, should you leave, the next owner gets a clear picture of what is connected in the home.
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
We see this type of problem all the time.

Many unexperienced users will see whole home audio or pre-installed AV systems and think that is a selling point for a house. The reality is that it is often more of a liability vs. a benefit.
 
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HT9

Audiophyte
Exactly the issue I am having also. Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, in my case, the cables were not organised at all into pairs and I was not able to identify the outdoor speakers leading me to think there could be a wiring issue (not good!). I have some more trouble shooting ahead this weekend, and have taken the outside speakers down to confirm they are working with direct connection to receiver. I also have the volume controls for all speakers, and need to work out if there is any issue there.

For the OP, I used the Atlantic Technology 3.1 HSB Speaker Base with H-PAS-Enabled Subwoofer (Black), which is a center, right, left speaker with powered sub in a sound bar format under TV for $799 on Amazon. I did not see many options for this and depending on what if any gear you have, I have been very happy with the 5.1 in a medium room with my ceiling surround speakers.


Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
 
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photographer86

Audioholic
If you're not experienced and you would like to have that home theater room be back up and running I would recommend a pro, but as other have said you can do it yourself. Would just take time and lot of questions. But if you have some time and want to play around your free to ask here. If you want to skip all that check other stores or maybe find a hobbyiest like us here that could lend you a hand for cheaper price or for free. That looks like it would be a sweet setup if up and running again. By the looks would have to find out if its a 5.1= 5 speakers and and 1 subwoofer. 7.1= 7 speakers and subwoofer. or getting into atoms has 5 or 7 speakers plus ceiling speakers and could have mulitple subwoofers.

Here is the setups and this may get you going in right direction https://www.aperionaudio.com/blogs/aperion-audio-blog/5-1-vs-7-1-dolby-atmos-more

From there its just getting a AVR aka receiver that can do the the setup you have. Any other questions post away. Will help the best we can.
 
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