Pre-Wired for surround sound

[kavikrishna]

Dear friends,

I am going to be a first time home buyer in the next 2 weeks. The home that I will be moving into is supposedly a "pre-wired" for surround sound. I can see wires hanging lose from the walls in front in the living area (3 locations) and the ceiling (2 locations) in the living room.

Any idea what would these wires be?

I now need to start shopping for my first home theater system. I am looking at buying the Onkyo receiver and Bose acoustimass surround sound speaker package.

In addition to wires and cables that would come standard with these equipment as well as the wiring thats already present in the house as mentioned above, would I need to buy anything else?? If so, what is the $$ of accessories that I will be expected to spend?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Krishna.

 

[Duffinator]

Congratulation on your new home. A new home theater will bring you and your family lots of enjoyment, put some time and effort into what ever you buy as you probably won't be upgrading it any time soon. You will not find many fans of Bose speakers on this web site including me. If you are looking at an entry level surround system I recommend this:

http://www.definitivetech.com/loudspeakers/procinema/procinema_60.html

Also check out the recommendations here:

http://www.audioholics.com/showcase/systemguide/index.php

Good luck and listen to as many speakers and receivers as you can before making your purchase.

 

[Leprkon]

Please don't buy the Bose if you want to take full advantage of your pre-wired house and the Onkyo receiver. For the same money, you can get a much better sound from other speakers.

All I ask is that, when you go looking at speakers, compare the specs. Most companies will tell you they have a frequency response of (for example) 55Hz to 20KHz and a sensitivity of 88 or 90 or 92 dB. Ask whoever you are buying your speakers from to tell you what the Bose specs are. Don't let them off the hook, nail them down for the specs. They will, in the end, tell you they don't know because Bose doesn't publish them.

I'll make it easy on you. Here's the link to Bose's very own website. There's absolutely no information there as to how the speakers will perform.

http://www.bose.com/controller;jsessionid=C9T9PzlBS6tgZynKDK1H9JhQL2Z98mB12NgFpSQjP2MpFdpWRzvn!-1553042229!2020971023?event=VIEW_PRODUCT_PAGE_EVENT&product=am10_surround_inthebox&linksource=productnav_txt_inthebox&pageName=/home_entertainment/theater/systems/surround/am10/index.jsp

Ferrari will tell you how many horsepower their car has. Dell will tell you how many gigahertz their computer is. Onkyo will give you a watts, frequency, and noise level. Why not Bose ?

If you want a cube type system, look at these which are non-proprietary and easily expandable or upgradeable.

http://ww3.onecall.com/PID_25552.htm

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-zWel67FNlSo/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?wm=fp&I=107RM20&g=12700

http://www.av123.com/products_product.php?section=speakers&product=60.1

or go here: www.accessories4less.com and follow the links to the Canton LE125 package, the Mordaunt-Short MS300 package, or even the Fosgate AR 5.1 package

any of these will get you better quality sound than the Bose for very similar prices. I'm sure other people will have any number of other recommendations.


Now as to the wires, the two hanging from the roof are undoubtedly the rear surround speaker wires. the front three: probably two are the feeds for the rear surrounds. the third might be for a sixth speaker if it's bare wire (you might see if there is a connection in the ceiling near the very far back wall) or if it is an RCA jack, it might be for the subwoofer.