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Gear / Technical Help => Playback Forum => Topic started by: johnw on April 05, 2013, 03:23:02 PM
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I'm moving into a new house where the builders installed 4 (maybe eight) speakers in the ceiling that spans between the kitchen and a living area. There are 2 outdoor speakers wired off the porch that comes off this area. I've never run anything but stereo and I'm not sure how to amp these things. I don't see any label on them, but most of these things on Crutchfield seem to be 8 ohm. What would be the best way to get them going? I would assume a receiver that does either 5.1 or 7.1 and then don't connect anything to the center channel? For the outdoor speakers, the receiver would need an A/B output speaker selector?
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You will likely need to use a seperate speaker selector switch box..they normally have impedance matching built in so any amp/receiver would work..is there volume controls on the walls as well? Congrats on the new house!!
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Don't remember volume controls being on the wall, but it has been a while since I've been inside and I can't get back in until 4/11 when we do the final walk through to look again. I'll look into a speaker selector vs a multichannel amp. Thanks!
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Er...
Hi John. What's Crutchfield?
I install this kind of stuff every now and again and have just (privately) done a friends' house with a system just as you describe.
However, if this has been done for you by builders, I would be amazed if you don't find you have a single pair coming back which runs all of the speakers described. I would also expect them all to be 100V line high impedance.
Do you know they have pulled these as stereo? And do you know they are not high impedance?
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I assume this is just for listen to music throughout the house at modest levels. 30watts should be good... it won't be thunderous but it will be more than enough.
Check out the Niles SI-1230.
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_190SI12302/Niles-SI-1230-Series-2.html?tp=180&awkw=52571790265&awat=pla&awnw=g&awcr=23365597345&awdv=c#details-tab
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So there are 4 speakers upstairs split between 2 areas (kitchen & living room) and 2 more outside on the deck. But there are only 4 pairs of wires. There is a knob on the wall in the kitchen which I assume acts to control volume but I can't tell if it works. The 2 in the living area work, but I can't get the 2 in the kitchen to work. I tried turning the knob and nothing. Only one of the 2 outside speakers works. I don't remember what brand they were or specs, but I pulled a grill off one in the kitchen and had to google the name and it looks like some junk brand. The speaker in the kitchen was wired, but I couldn't trace the wire without tearing up the kitchen. I believe this was all installed when the house was built but am suspicious that someone might have added the 2 outside speakers and then tried splicing the wires or something. That might explain how only one of the two is working.
The basement also was setup for 5.1 surround using similar crap speakers. The movers made a mess of the wires when they moved the former owners out, but I got all 5 working and may replace them later on. There were HDMI cables that were run through the wall from a closet to a cutout behind the wall mount. Unfortunately the movers had tried yanking those through and the cables got stuck in the studs 1/2 way through. Took me a day to get the cables out then to take off the base board, notch it out and cut out the drywall behind the baseboard to get cables back up to where the tv hangs. I really wish the builders had run conduit or the movers didn't try to pull the HDMIs.
Bottom line, neither the builder or the previous owners were focused on quality sound. This was just for appearances, but I am trying to make it work.
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Ok this got me motivated to look into this more. The wires go into a cabinet in the living room. There are 4 pairs like I said, 2 for speakers in that room and one for a speaker on the porch. The other presumably goes to the other porch speaker but doesn't work. I took off the volume control and there is a CAT-5 wire going in. The orange and orange stripe go to the left and the green pair goes into the right labelled amplifier in. I go back to the cabinet and there is a CAT-5 wire there terminated into an ethernet plug. I always assumed this was for ethernet, but I cut the plug off, strip the wires and hook them into the amplifier and voila, there is now sound to those speakers. Not sure why it had been terminated in an ethernet plug but that's progress! Now to get the porch speaker working!
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Well, what I have in my house is a old dennon avr reciever, I think from the early 2000s I think I got It 2001 so they aren't quiet the same but I like it a lot and its very powerful and can run 9 speakers. It uses a ton of power which has changed, my lights flicker when I turn it on, I think it's draws near 1000 watts from the wall. But it's great and the Yamaha elite series is great.
These are if you have a lot of money to spend, but if you want to go cheaper check out the sonys, Sherwood, and onokyo they are all very good as well.
Congrats