In-Ceiling Speakers. Receiver? Amp?

[Mikeymcg]

Hey all,
I just moved into a new apartment which has built-in ceiling speakers. The owner couldn’t give much information besides the fact that it was installed about 10 years ago.
There are 5 rooms with one speaker and each room has a volume knob pre-wired in.

I’m looking for advice on the correct amplifier to get. Not looking to break the bank. Attached below is the picture of the plate. Thanks for any help and suggestions.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hey all,
I just moved into a new apartment which has built-in ceiling speakers. The owner couldn’t give much information besides the fact that it was installed about 10 years ago.
There are 5 rooms with one speaker and each room has a volume knob pre-wired in.

I’m looking for advice on the correct amplifier to get. Not looking to break the bank. Attached below is the picture of the plate. Thanks for any help and suggestions.

That is a strange one. This is the problem all these systems are different. It looks as if that system was designed for a five channel receiver set to mono, but with the five channel stereo selected. In effect it would have been a poor man's distribution amp.

So what you need is at least a five channel receiver.

 

[Mikeymcg]

That is a strange one. This is the problem all these systems are different. It looks as if that system was designed for a five channel receiver set to mono, but with the five channel stereo selected. In effect it would have been a poor man's distribution amp.

So what you need is at least a five channel receiver.

Thanks for the advice. Will any standard 5 channel receiver be able to send a mono signal through all 5 channels?

 

[nathan_h]

No, none of the consumer brands will do that.

Even most whole house audio distribution amps don’t make that easy, sadly.

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But more important: Before buying anything you need to test each of those inputs and see where it leads.

It is probably a single line to each room, but some might be in parallel or series or some other whackiness.

If you don't have a device that can feed a signal to one connection at a time, you can try something like this: https://www.lifewire.com/quickly-test-speaker-connections-3135135 which I have NOT done, but seems to be a common approach. You may need to have someone in each room tell you what they hear and they should not assume that if they hear it one room they are done. They need to listen to all the speakers for each connection you test.

 

[highfigh]

Thanks for the advice. Will any standard 5 channel receiver be able to send a mono signal through all 5 channels?

Read the manual. Hard to say without knowing what you're looking at for a receiver or amp, but many do have a mono setting.

 

[nathan_h]

Read the manual. Hard to say without knowing what you're looking at for a receiver or amp, but many do have a mono setting.

Okay I'm not saying you are wrong, but I am curious to see an example or two because I have had a heck of hard time finding such a unit. I agree that that would be the easiest and cheapest and a completely satisfactory solution. I just haven't been able to find such a unit.

 

[highfigh]

Okay I'm not saying you are wrong, but I am curious to see an example or two because I have had a heck of hard time finding such a unit. I agree that that would be the easiest and cheapest and a completely satisfactory solution. I just haven't been able to find such a unit.

Ever hear of Party Mode in an AVR? In stereo receivers, many have it and have, for decades. Look at the manuals for operation of the Mode button.

 

[nathan_h]

Yeah I have that in all my AVRs but it is not Mono. It is stereo in each speaker pair. It is sometimes called All Channel Stereo. Yamaha has a party mode which does that and adds the same content, again in stereo, to zone two.

The OP needs mono in each channel and I haven't found a unit that can do that.

Every single current Denon, Marantz and Yamaha are unable to do mono like that. I have read the manuals.

Many don’t even have the old “mono” button that only worked on FM content anyway.

 

[TLS Guy]

Thanks for the advice. Will any standard 5 channel receiver be able to send a mono signal through all 5 channels?

You will have to download the manuals. Receivers used to be able to go Mono, but I'm not sure they do now.

As others have said, you need to check the wiring before you buy anything. Someone may have just bought a plate labelled the way yours is. These type of systems are just awful, and installed in the craziest of ways. Then people post here after they have connected everything up and already destroyed it.

I always ask myself why people put any money into these systems. It must permanently seem like you are inhabiting a shopping mall.

Personally I can't think of anything much worse, than to have five tatty speakers installed in the ceiling of five rooms. To me it sounds like pure torture.