Entertainment Center: TVs, Stereos, VCRs and DVDs - How does pre-wired sound work?

Hi everyone, I just moved into a house that says that the living room is pre-wired for surround sound. There are wires jutting out of the walls around the room that I presume are for speakers? But I have no idea of what to do next? Where should I put my receiver, there is a cable tv outlet, a phone outlet and some power outlets in that room. Any help would be appreciated. The folksthat lived her ebefore us didnt even use that room, or atleast they didnt have a sound system and didnt wonder how to use it.

speaker wires under the carpets or baseboards, they're already run inside the walls for you.

All the speaker wires should come together at one location, near that spot is where your reciever should go. Just make sure that all the cables you need to connect to the reciver will reach-you can make the speaker wires a little longer, but it's harder to extend other cables. Is the outlet, cable tv, phone and speaker wires in the same general area? That's probably where you'll want your entertainment center, TV, home theater, etc. (Telephone comes in handy for satellite TV, TIVO, and some cable boxes.)

I think the hardest part will be figuring out which speaker wires go where. You may be able to find some markings on the wires to help you sort them out. If not, then post back for ideas on how to do this.

Once you get them all sorted out, they have some nice wall plates so that you don't have to look at wires sticking out of the walls. Also, the speakers, furniture or something may hide them when you're done.

Depending on your amp/reciever, it may handle 4, 5 up to 7 surround sound speakers, plus another set of "B" speaker outputs for another room-not both at the same time though. Check your owner's manual for more info.

Hope this helped!

THank you so much for the informative reply. Although there are wires for the speakers high up on the walls, 5 of them, i still dont see any place they come together so i can hook up the receiver. There is a cable connection, an electrical outlet and a telephone outlet in that room, thats all. Where do I hook up the receiver? Any ideas? Thanks again.

is there a closet or cabinet in this area? Sometimes the owner's don't want to see the equipment and plan for it to be placed it in a closet or cabinet-check rooms that share a wall with this room as well.

Do you have any kind of test equipment? Try a continuity test to figure out if the wires are connected togehter.

It sounds like the pre-wiring was designed for some smaller wall mounted speakers, above the listening position.

A pair of wires lower on the wall (maybe different walls though) should connect to a pair of wires higher on the wall. There may be a pair of wires that stay lower on the wall for a subwoofer connection. Look at the room and try to picture where you'd place the surround speakers, the wires should correspond to the locations. Also, are the wires labeled at all? The labels may help you figure out where they go/connect to.

If none of the above, then you may need to ask the home builder where and how the wires are ran.

Hope this helps!

Thank you Desi, I guess I will have to go figure out who built the house...

They may all be in your basement...if you have one that is. People who wire their homes for sound typically connect everything to a PC.

Keep in mind, if you are running surround sound (5.1, 7.1), the speaker wires will actually connect to the sub woofer, not the receiver.

is there a blank plate on the wall? Of any kind? Maybe the wires were placed in the box and a cover was placed over it to protect them. If you've seen a blank electrical wall plate in the store, that's what I'm thinking of.

Still trying to help!

Yes Desi, there is a blank switch plate like thing on a wall in that room. Should I open that and look inside? If i do find wires sticking out, should I just experiment to find out which wire goes to which speaker? I guess the subwoofer wire is in there too... because all the existing wires sticking out on the walls are over 6 feet high.

I'm really curious to see if you've figured this out- or if this is still getting our goat.

I take it there's no labels on the wires then to figure out which is which, so you will need to experiment some. Do have any test eqiupment? Meter, battery powered test light, etc?

What stuff would I need. I opened it and theres a bunch of wires.. i need some tools, what should i get? I dont have a thing other than pliers and tape.

to get back to you, I went on vacation for a few days.

At/in the wall box I'm thinking that there should be two wires joined together-although they may seperate just inside the box. I'll call this a cable. You should have a cable for each wall location, ie five wall locations, five cables, ten wires total. The wires may look like lamp cord or speaker cable-the same as your existing setup. If this isn't what you see, please describe it for me.

I'd suggest buying an inexpensive multimeter (digital or analog-doesn't matter)-check the electrical aisle of any store. Just make sure that the unit can measure resistance (Ohms, looks like a horseshoe symbol). A wire stripper- to remove the plastic insulation from the wires, if your pliers don't have one already-although you could carefully use a razor knife for this too. Check with friends and nieghbors, someone may have tools to loan you, so you wouldn't need to buy anything. Some means to label the cables, masking tape and pen, self adhesive labels, colored zip ties, anything that makes sense to you to identify the cables.

Set the meter to measure resistance, then touch two wires from the meter together, the meter should show zero or low resistance. If you have an analog meter, while doing this, adjust the "zero ohms adjustment" until the meter reads zero-or as close as you can get. This will check the meter and make sure it's ready to go and shows you what reading you will be looking for when you test the wires in the walls next. Up on the wall, strip the wire and twist the two ends together. This will create a very low resistance for the meter to measure. At the box, test each pair of wires until you find the one that measures close to zero ohms. (All the others should measure high/infinite resistance) Label this pair of wires and move it out of your way. You can go back up on the wall and un-twist the wires if you want, although since you've labled them, I don't think it will matter. Repeat the test with each remaining pair.

It's possible that you may find a pair of wires that doesn't work. Sometimes during construction and finishing the wires will become damaged. If this happens, your best bet is to run new wires to replace the damaged ones.

Another option is to use a powered test/continuity light- not the kind that needs power to work, but the kind that takes batteries instead. It should have a metal probe and a wire with a clip on one end. Do the same thing, twist the wires together on the wall and test each pair at the box until the light comes on.

I'm not sure how to connect the wires to your amp/reciever and speakers. If the wires from the wall are long enough, then a direct connection would be your best bet. If not, then you can twist and tape the wires to make them longer. Or you could install wall plates where the wires are and connect the wires to them instead.

Please post back if I/we can help you some more-and let us know how the project goes!

I just moved into a new home w/pre-wired cieling outlets and outside lania ceiling outlets (basically just wires hanging thru ceiling of both areas and originating from wall area behind TV hutch). I just came from Sears and a salesman told me that I would need custom equipment to have the indoor and outdoor speakers switched from using the same surround sound unit :confused: You said in a past post there is A/B speaker switch on the units. I would also ask what unit you would recommend if any I'm not to familar with this area and any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated :)
PS:I'm not looking for anything spectacular just nice unit

at the reciever you're thinking of buying. My current reciever is a older Sony, on the front of it, just above the headphone jack is a switch labled "speaker select" . You can pick your A speakers (my main stereo speakers, B (I'm not using) and A+B-both together.

Most name-brand component recievers will probably have this switch. Check different models available. For research purposes, check out Crutchfield's website. They have fairly detailed specs for their recievers. Example, http://www.crutchfield.com/S-aRBo4pteQyJ/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?wm=fp&I=580TXS503B&g=10420 if you read the spec's you will see "2 sets of main speaker outputs" this indicates that it will have an A/B switch inside it. Also, look at the image of the front panel, you can just see the two buttons for speaker selection below the power button.

Radio Shack may something similair available, an external A/B speaker switch, you could add this on to almost any reciever/amp.

You won't be able to seperate the volume controls for your main/secondary speakers-both will be at the same volume. Also, both speakers will play the same source. You will probably need to go inside to change the track, disc, etc, your remote probably won't reach from the outside.

There are whole-house type audio distrubution systems, these will allow multiple sources and independant volume levels. Check with a home theater specialist/dealer in your area. Common names are Nusound, Russo, Omni, etc.

Cautions: 1) Watch the impedance on the second pair of speakers connected, you don't want a less of an impedance than the maker specifies, although it can be higher, just not lower. 2) Keep an eye on the power ratings on the speakers as well, they can be lower than your main set, but then you need to keep the volume reasonable. If you crank it up, you'll probably blow the speakers.


Another approach, if your funds allow, is to buy a less-capable two channel reciever-just for the external speakers. This will give you indepedant volume control and possibly seperate sources-for a lot less than a whole-house system. Place an RCA spilitter at the source you want to share, then run a cable to each amp. Or maybe add an inexpensive CD player to the small system- 2 different cds playing-one inside and one outside.

I'm not an expert on home theater/stereos, I just thought the idea of using the capabilites of what you already had was worthwhile. I hope this gave you some ideas and helped a little!