Newbie help on whole house audio system

[jcPanny]

Whole house audio

Like you suggested both RCA plugs are needed to send stereo sound from the receiver to the Zone 2 amp. I think that the Zone 2 amp might be the missing piece of the puzzel. It was probably removed by the previous owner. Locate the 2 RCA connectors in the closet. These will connect to the input of an amplifier. The output of the amp will connect to the speaker level connections for the rooms. How many sets of speaker level connections do you have in the closet? This and the settings on the volume controls will determine how many amp channels and how much amp power you will need.

 

[Vojak]

1. Connect house speakers to the "SPEAKER B" connection if available. Do not run speaker B AND speaker A at the same time.
2. Connect the TAPE OUT on the receiver to a 2 channel audiosource amp ($100). Connect the amp to the house speakers.
3. Buy a multizone receiver that can run a 5.1 system and zone 2 speakers like the Yamaha RX-V2500 or 1500 ($5-700)




Thanks for the replies! Replies the both below.

Eric -
"There is still a piece of the puzzle missing, that does not sound realistic to have speakers installed with no connections made to them."
There seems to have been something mounted on the wall next to the cabling box in the MBR (there are two screw holes there). Perhaps the prior owners took something with them.

"Down in the living room there are four sets of screw down speaker connectors. Two of those pairs run the two ceiling speakers in the LR. What have you found about the other two pairs ?"
The other two pairs control the front right and front left speakers. Basically, there are two other sets of screw down connectors. One of the left hand side of the room and one on the right hand side. This is where I plugged my own front speakers into and they work.

"Looking up in the MBR photo I can see two four conduction wires that are patched to other cables with blue splices via two short pigtails. Could that be where the wires on the unused screw down connectors in the LR make their way to ?"
Not sure.

"The RCA plugs in the LR have a grey wire, do you see any of these grey wires in the MBR closet ? Do you have any RCA plug outlets anywhere else in the LR ?"
No, there are no grey wires in the MBR closet and no other RCA jacks down in the living room.

jcPanny -
I do not see any RCA connectors in the closet. All I have are a bunch of connected and unconnected speakers wires. The labling on all of these unconnected speaker wires is a bit puzzling though. All but one of them correspond to each of the rooms with speakers. The one that doesnt says: SOR Fam. Rm. Source. Not sure if I should draw the assumption that this is a source wire of sorts (much like the blue master source cable). There is another cable coming out from the wall in the MBR. I'll check on the number of speaker level connections when I get home later today. You also mentioned that that number together with the settings on the volume controls will tell how much amp power I need...what vol. control settings would I be looking for/at?

Thanks!

 

[Eric Apple]

I agree w/Jcpanny

It appears that you have two seperate audio systems. A 5.1 prewire in the LR, and whole house audio upstairs in the MBR.

Those grey wires down in the LR probably were to feed to whole house audio system source from the main 5.1 zone.

The speaker wires w/nothing connected probably used to connect to an amp that is now gone.

So where do those grey wires go ? The best way to trace these would be with a fox & hound wire tracer. They run about $50-$100.

Finding the other end of the wires won't necessily be a big deal, unless you want to use the sources down in the LR around the house.

Otherwise, you are looking at a house amp in the MBR with some sources plus the 5.1 in the LR.

You should figure out the MBR wires and speaker matching, and see how many wires you have to drive the number of speakers you have. You will also need to figure out the volume controls impendence matching wise. To do this, you should pop one out and look for a name/model # and jumper settings on the VC. Use the name.model to google up an manual and look up the jumper setting. You want to determine what the impedence match on the VC is set to. This info is what you need to select an amplifier for all those speakers.

 

[Vojak]

Thanks Eric!

I will try to trace down the gray wires later today.

Looks like with all your help I'm pretty close on getting this all nailed down! Its really pretty amazing how much knowledge it requires to get this setup When I bought the house I figured it was a matter of just plugging in an amp and off you go Had I known this I would have milked the owners on exact details of the setup.

The best part though - I have learned a ton by going through this exercise!

Thanks for all the help and I will let you all know the results (or if I run into any more problems)!

Cheers and happy holidays!

 

[Vojak]

Ok...here is an update. I used a wire tracer and connected the main node to one of the red/black grey wires (took the hood off). Trying to track it down the wire tracer gave me positive indication on the wire up and down the wall where the wire was located. I went up to the MBR closet and tried it around the control box (where all the speaker wires are) but got no positive feedback. Not sure if I'm using it wrong (connected red from the wire tracer base to red on the wire and same with black) or if the wire goes somewhere else. I'll try to track it down but it runs somewhere up the wall and I assumed it would be going to the MBR closet.

Cheers!

 

[Eric Apple]

Great you have a wire tracer. You might have to just start going over all the walls in the house to find those guys. I would try near the FL+FR speaker plugs, and at least all the walls in the LR to rule out one is a sub connector.

You should go a head and trace all the speakers wire to the VCs too. That will tell you how many speakers are being driver off of one wire pair. Be sure to check multiple VCs for each wire. You likely have several VCs tied to one wire in the MBR. That info in combination with the impedence matching capability/setting of the VCs will be the info you need to select another amp.