Just bought a foreclosure and this place had some crazy sound through out the house. The problem is that the people that lost the house took everything with them. I now have fourteen 6 1/2" holes(bedrooms, bathrooms, and lanai), two 11" holes(family room), and three 10 1/2" x 14" holes(living room where all the wires lead) in the ceiling and eight holes in the walls where the volumn controls were. Thats right nineteen total speakers. I believe what was in there originally were Jamo due to some backings in the holes. What do I need to push 19 speakers and where should I look to purchase this volume of equipment without breaking the bank. I'm not looking to have theatre sound throughout but in the family room and living room it should be of higher quality. I appreciate any advice or recommendations.
First, look at the wires at the head end and see if they were labelled. If not, and you want to know what they all go to anyway, make sure all of the wires are separated at the speaker end, get a multi-meter and have someone connect the positive/negative on one speaker at a time so you can check for a connection. Mark each wire at the head end and make a list of which speaker and room they're in. Once that's done, you can decide how many you want to use, what level of quality (read price) and how you'll use them.
Since you said you have 19 holes, it's probably safe to assume that 5 were for the theater and 14 were for the distributed audio. Buy the good ones for that and worry about the zones that are more important. You can use much sheaper speakers in the bedrooms, bath and lanai. If you'll spend a lot of time on the lanai, get better ones for that, too.
Look at the Jamo site for their dealer locater. We can't recommend anyone since you didn't post where you are. I can't see why plugging the holes and starting over makes sense- the hard part is already done.
If you want to keep it simple, buy impedance compensating volume controls. They'll keep the amp happy and makes the system more simple. Look at the volume control locations- I'd think they ran a 4 conductor cable as the feed and two 2 conductor wires to the speakers. If the second wire is also a 4 conductor, they probably used the dual voice coil model (Jamo 6.5A2 for the 6.5" and 8.5A2 for the 8.5") and if the speakers are more than about 10' apart, it's a good idea to use the same now. If you use single VC models, you'll have one channel so far away from the other that you'll never hear both at any one time. If each volume control also has a Cat5e at the location and only two wires are stripped, they used muting volume controls. If they have an RJ-45 plug, they were A-Bus or keypads.
Here's an example, from Parts Express:
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=302-484
If you want to us one stereo amp for the distributed audio, look at the Behringer A500. It's plenty of power, will handle difficult loads and at $200, is a steal. I just put one in a bar/restaurant and it's enough power, sounds good and has a level control for each channel.
Here's an impedance protected volume control- this kind uses what's called an 'auto-former' to maintain the load seen by the amplifier but this one doesn't have jumpers, which you need for this many speakers.
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=248-749
This one, does have the jumpers and is a better alternative to just bypassing the volume controls and using a master switch/volume controller because you would always have to go back to the system to turn the speakers down.
http://www.jamo.com/na-en/products/at-101-description/
The impedance matching ones are very similar, from one brand to another. If you want the best method of using the system without blowing other people's ears out at unexpected times, muting volume controls are great. When the system turns off, they mute and ONLY turn on when someone presses the button on the face of the control. All of the non-muting controls will come on at the previous volume when the system turns on.
