How to wire 2 sets of speaker jacks

[stevem99]

We are planning on some remodeling and we want to allow the entertainment system to be put in one of two locations in our rather large family room. Each location will have several cat 6 drops, a phone line, and a speaker wall plate.

So there will be 2 speaker wall plates both wired to the same speakers, but only one wall plate will actually be used at any given time. The cabinetry will then be mounted on this wall and connections made from the Sony STR-5300ES and such. It is possible that at some future time, we may want to change the room around without tearing up walls, so the idea is to also wire the alternate location while the entire room is torn up. Other furniture will easily conceal the wall mounted junction boxes, if they are unused.

The house has a structured wiring panel and I have no problems adding the cat 6, phone drops, or additional outlets... I just have no idea how to wire the speakers so as to not mess things up. Thoughts?

 

[Jack Hammer]

...The house has a structured wiring panel and I have no problems adding the cat 6, phone drops, or additional outlets... I just have no idea how to wire the speakers so as to not mess things up. Thoughts?

The only safe way I can think do it would be to run and lable all wiring to both locations. Then only connect the wires to the plate you will be using. Leave the wires tied off, labled, and unconnected behind a solid flat cover plate at the unused location (one that is just a cover, no connections).

That way you could switch from one to the other and only have one "live." I say to use a flat cover plate so you would be forced to switch the plate with the connections to the other wall if you moved your stuff around. Then for the old location, lable, tie off, terminate with electrical tape or wire caps (or cut the ends off) and put behind the plain plate.

Hope that made sense

Jack

 

[Midcow2]

Or use a break and make A/B switch

Run and clearly label all of your cables.

The reason to only connect one set at a time is if you accidently connect both sets you have two speakers in parallel and effective half your impendance. Example two 8 ohm speakers connected in parallel equals one 4 ohm speaker. Two 4 ohm speakers in parallel equals one 2 ohm speaker. One 4 ohm and one 8 ohm in parallel equals a 6 ohm speaker.
Halfing the effective speaker ohm impedance doubles the current and doubles the power and can easily overdrive your AVR.

IDEA for another way. You could easily get a two-position switch ( one wire in two wires out) and in position A you would have speakers A connected and in position B you would have speaker B connected. The one wire in would go to your AVR and the two wires out would go to each speaker set.

The switch should be a break and make type. In otherwords for example you are connected to speaker A and want to switch to speaker B. The switch should first break ( or disconnect) the speaker A connection and then Make ( or conenct) the speaker B connection. You do not want a switch that connects both A and B duringswitching for the reasons stated in paragraph 1 above.

 

[jamie2112]

You could also look into wall speaker selectors, they are available at most hi-fi stores, then you could run 2 sets of speaker lines to your selector and chose from there.

 

[Jack Hammer]

Just had another idea based on Midcow2's post. Run one set of wires from the speakers to the location you most likely expect to use, site A. Hook everything up to the wall plate. Run a set of wires from site A to the other location, site B. You have two separate runs. One from speakers to site A, one from site A to site B. Leave the wires from site A to site B unconnected and labeled in the wall. Wire them up if you move your gear and remove the plate from site A to avoid having a live exposed connection.

FTR, I'm a hobbyist, not a professional installer. All my suggestions for this are ideas how it could work. I have helped friends prewire their home, but not anything like what you are trying to do. If in doubt, run it by a professional installer before spending money and/or committing to a solution.

Jack