My house has ceiling speakers, now what?

[BMXTRIX]

Awesome about the success!

Definitely sounds like sketchy volume controls if they are stuck at max or have portions that don't work properly. That said, you can easily pick up some additional volume controls which just apply volume up/down control from a ton of locations, including Monoprice. Or, ditch volume controls in favor of a centralized/controlled by your phone type of system.

Depends on how deep in the woods you want to get on things. A real shame if the wire to the power control is only a 2-wire, as most control these days needs category cabling run to make them work.

 

[Darenwh]

I agree, happy to hear you have it working.

 

[Rando]

Trying to resolve issue with the above, hoping for some help.

Status - Speakers are connected throughout house to a switch hub and Amplifier, 6 zones total. 4 zones have 2 speakers each, 2 zones have 4 speakers each. Each zone is connected to a wall volume knob, all zones/speakers are currently working. The wall volume knobs require power, and are wired to a central power source.

Issue - In one zone the wall volume knob does not control volume, and volume in this zone (a 4 speaker zone) is stuck being louder than the others. I assumed a faulty knob and replaced with another working knob from elsewhere in the house, and was surprised to see the issue continue.

I have a new wall knob on order that doesn't require power, to hopefully address problem, but is there anything else that could be causing this that I can check or look at? Yes I could control volume at the Amp, but because this particular zone is default louder than the other zones, turning down the Amp volume causes all the other zones to be too quiet even at max volume.

I just realized that I haven't tried to move the speaker wires for this zone to a different spot in the switch hub, in case that could somehow be causing the issue. Could try that just for kicks. But open to other things to check.

Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[Rando]

Discovered today as I was connecting an audio converter to enable the TV to play through the Amp that the zone giving me trouble actually plays with now power flowing to the volume knob.

None of the other zones work this way, the volume knob IS connected to power, but if I cut the power, all other zones stop playing sound, except for this one.

Very confused.

Going to switch out the control knob to a non-powered one and see if I'm able to control volume.

 

[Rando]

I don't think the Zone 1 speakers are wired to the Volume knob, I think they're directly going to the closet and are connected directly to the Amp. I disconnected the speaker wires at the knob and speakers continued to play... Which explains how they can play with power cut.

Looks like I'll need to get into the attic to trace what's going where, did NOT want to do that.

 

[Kingnoob]

We get questions like this on a regular basis from people moving into a house with a mystery whole-house audio system. We try to help, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone come back and say “got it all figured out and working.”

You should get in touch with Soundolier tech support. Failing that, try Home Theater Direct. They specialize in whole-house audio and should be able to set you up with something that uses at least some of your existing hardware.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Congratulations gotta be nice for household chores is this a high end home or something very expensive?
Not sure if there audiophile quality got specifications or anything?


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[Rando]

Congratulations gotta be nice for household chores is this a high end home or something very expensive?

Thanks King,
I guess yeah, it's a high-end house, but the sound components are minimal for now. It's a Florida ranch style single floor, cement outer walls, 12 foot ceilings, tile & wood floors (no carpet/sound dampening), lots of big windows and sliding doors, so echoing is an issue. Also includes a screened in lanai area with a pool and outdoor kitchen that also has ceiling speakers mounted, and sliding doors from the house can open up extending the living space, when it's not brutally hot (now is perfect weather for this).

A lot of this was proof of concept to see if I could use what was in place (ceiling speakers and wiring) and then upgrade as needed in the future.

I was able to resolve my final issue, the speaker wires in Zone 1 were in fact wired directly to my component closet and not to the volume control knob as expected. But because that room and the knob were only separated by about 5 feet of walls with a fireplace between them, I was actually able to reroute the wiring to that knob without having to get into the attic area (using a really long stick!), and the knob already had its wire back to the room. So Zone 1 now cooperates and can be controlled via switch like the rest of the house.

The outside lanai/kitchen area was also perfect for an outdoor TV (but fully covered), so I installed that this weekend (70" LG) which I was able to connect via Bluetooth to the inside receiver, so that TV sound can now emit from the pool area speakers which is sweet.

Now that everything is in place and connected a little haphazardly (I have HDMI to RCA converters and Digital sound to RCA converters currently in place), I'll upgrade where it make sense.

But pleased, and it does just about everything I originally wanted at a fraction of the quoted price I received.

Win win.