Old Home Theater System - Q's for the Audiophiles

[beatnavy]

Last year my wife and I moved into our "dream house" on the water. The previous owners were old...and got older. There wasn't a lot of maintenance done in the last few years, and when something didn't work, particularly of the electrical variety, their solution seemed to be "well, just cut the cord" where it happened to be. I have an amazing variety of randomly cut wires around the house and property -- telephone, speaker, romex, etc.

Anyway, there was an AV/home theater system installed probably in the late 90's and early 2000's that was state of the art at the time. It included one of those ceiling-mounted home theater Sony projection systems that weighs 500 pounds, a drop down wall-sized screen, some big ol' speakers in the cabinets, and other speakers around the house mainly in the ceilings.

We ditched the boat anchor Sony projector (didn't seem to work anyway) and got rid of the celling mounted screen roller (the screen itself was gone -- probably just yanked off at some point). What we are left with is a couple of odd pieces in the AV cabinet, the speakers around the house, and a rat's nest of speaker wire in the cabinet. If possible, my wife and I would like to take advantage of the speakers for the purposes of piping music around the house. Based on the pics below and what I describe, is this possible and what would I need to buy to test what works and what doesn't and whether the speaker infrastructure is serviceable? An amplifier and a receiver? Or should I just rip all this stuff out? Not looking for state of the art or high-end -- mainly just the ability to pipe music around.

Here's some sort of switch system that seems to be hooked to speaker wire (the rat's nest) in the cabinet.


Here's something called a "Faroudja." At one point I googled it and I think it was some sort of video enhancer, probably for the big Sony projection system.


Here's what I guess is a subwoofer in the cabinet.


Here's an example of a ceiling mounted speaker in the living room where the home theater was set up. There are several of these around the house in different rooms.


A little closer on the control:


My knowledge of AV equipment peaked in 1988 at "not much" and has gone down since then. Thanks in advance.

[908/930]

Is there 4 or 6 surround speakers right now? Are they all the same Altec 604bk? Not foam surrounds so they probably sound fine. Pick up a 7.1 receiver and wire it in.

That one speaker is a full range speaker 604-8k, really good quality speakers.

[dad911]

604-8k is still bringing some bucks on ebay.

They are 8 ohm speakers rated at 75 watts. You can drive them with most any receiver/amp.

I would lose the toggle switches and let a receiver do the switching.

What do you want to use for your source for audio?

[astrochex]

That switch system could be room selection for speakers.

What you should do is research the speakers to find out the resistance, make sure you don’t have anything funky.

[blucille]

Wow, thanks for stirring up my memory bank....could be early 90’s.....probably not 2000’s at all...possible but unlikely.

[908/930]

As Dad mentioned get rid of the switches. Many of the new AV receivers can be used for multi room.

[beatnavy]

Seven point whut receiver? Sorry, I need "see spot run" and after I googled 7.1 I learned that this quickly gets complex, or can get complex.

Ok, so it sounds like I lose that sort of home-grown switch thing. I had assumed that it was a sort of room control.

Here's more info. I walked around the house and took a sort of inventory. In addition to the subwoofer and the pair of altec lansings, there is a massive setup on the wall behind a piano that consists of three speakers, each of which is at least 18 inches in diameter. Sorry, the piano obscures most of the setup.


Then the hallway and what we call the "game room" both have a pair of generic-looking speakers that look like this. Or at least whatever is covering them is generic-looking, like this.


Then there's one altec lansing in the master bedroom. There may have been another, but it looks like it got ripped out of the wall or something. We already repair the drywall at this point.

So should I still look for a 7.1 receiver? Does it normally have enough speaker connections to deal with whatever it is I have? To Dad911's question I imagine our audio source would be a combo of old CD's (80's collection ) as well as whatever we can pull down online (e.g., spotify).

[plain fan]

I'd take the time to determine exactly where the wires go from that switch. Based on your description I would guess that it is a whole house audio setup (of that era) and that box controls where the sound is going throughout the house. I'd hook a receiver up to that box, turn the volume down low, and begin testing the switches.

Then I'd evaluate what you want to achieve with music in your house. Many people are ditching whole house audio like that because they prefer the ease and convenience of bluetooth wireless speakers (Sonos, Apple, Google, Klipsch, KEF, etc). You will possibly decide that you want to rip out all of the speakers and just repair the drywall.

In the main room you may want to keep the speakers "as is" and add a receiver for your own material.

[908/930]

I mentioned 7.1 because most of those receivers are set up to control multi room. That 18" woofer looks like the foam will need to be replaced, lots of places can do that fairly inexpensive, possible to do yourself also. How many ceiling speakers are there and in how many rooms?

[beatnavy]

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it

Ok, assuming I can get some sound going through the different speakers I'll look into how to refoam those. A quick google shows that it may not be that hard to do or have done.

Here's a summary of what I believe I have:

1. Living room where the home theater system is: two Altec Lansing's in the ceiling, that 3 speaker woofer setup, and the subwoofer pictured previously.
2. Hallway/Foyer: two ceiling speakers, make/brand unknown.
3. "Game room:" two wall speakers, make/brand unknown.
4. Master bedroom: One (I think ) Altec Lansing.
5. There were also cut speaker wires going to the outside patio. No current speakers tho.

Again, thanks for all suggestions.

[dad911]

Originally Posted by beatnavy

....... Or should I just rip all this stuff out? Not looking for state of the art or high-end -- mainly just the ability to pipe music around. ......

As I think about it, I'd suggest abandoning the speakers and going "new school"

I'm happy with a TV with Roku built in, and a good soundbar with subwoofer. All integrated, and I can stream youtube videos/concerts from my pc or phone.

As to the rest of the house, we use bluetooth speakers and streaming, and my wife uses bluetooth headset to listen to her audiobooks.

I've also started experimenting with a 'google home' speaker, for lighting control. I can also tell it to "play classic rock" or whatever we want to hear.

Do you really want to go to the media room to change the source for the bedrooms or living room?

[MysticLlama]

One simple way to go would be to get a few Sonos Amps and use them for each pair of speakers. They'd be easily controllable from a phone app, and you could name them whatever you want to I'd the rooms. A lot of time the multi zone receivers have to have remote extenders, are hard to configure, etc., and the Sonos thing would be a lot simpler. I knew someone that went that route in a brand new house build and it works great.

Then a receiver for surround in the main room that doesn't need all the multi zone stuff.

[908/930]

If you want to figure out what wires go where, do you have an old inexpensive battery powered radio that you can plug headphones into? Any old single plug airline style headphones kicking around? If you are not worried about being able to control volume differently in zones it could be tied into any receiver. What you are calling a subwoofer in the 3rd pic is a full range speaker.

[nota]

hook them up and listen first

a buddy who inherited a multi-national corp
and was an fussy audiophile NUT had those wall speakers all over
sound was very good

that "Faroudja." box is a very high end but older tech to convert movie frame rates vs tv cycles

[beatnavy]

Yeah, I'd like to hook them up and see what works and what does not.

Originally Posted by 908/930

If you want to figure out what wires go where, do you have an old inexpensive battery powered radio that you can plug headphones into? Any old single plug airline style headphones kicking around? If you are not worried about being able to control volume differently in zones it could be tied into any receiver. What you are calling a subwoofer in the 3rd pic is a full range speaker.

Sorry 908, not sure I'm following here. Don't I need a something with power?

Can I buy a basic receiver, hook it up to an audio source, and start hooking up speaker wires? Any recommendations before I start investing in more expensive equipment? I took a look at the Sonos stuff, and it looks intriguing, but it's also not dirt cheap (like I am ).

[Sooner or later]

It has been a while so I may not be up to date. Ignore post if I am wrong.

If you want to do a bunch of rooms you can go big buck or cheap. Sounds like you are leaning towards cheap. Which can be fine.

Buy a two zone receiver in your price range. Use zone 1 to drive your surround systemin your TV room. Use zone 2 and connect it to a speaker switch box. A couple hundred bucks. You then use the switch box to control the various rooms. That toggle switch device you have is probably a switch box. You would have to be in the main room to switch the other rooms on and off. You could get the proper remote, RF, to control source and volume from any room.

[sugarwood]

All outdated junk.
Toss everything.
Get a portable BT speaker.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W95RBZM?

https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-bluetooth-speakers/

[908/930]

You can use any source to see what speakers go to what wires, a cheap battery powered radio will work. I would test with something cheap just incase one of the wires is shorted, then label the wires.

Those Altec speakers are far from outdated junk.

[Sooner or later]

Originally Posted by 908/930

You can use any source to see what speakers go to what wires, a cheap battery powered radio will work. I would test with something cheap just incase one of the wires is shorted, then label the wires.

Those Altec speakers are far from outdated junk.

Yep, the Altec are damn good if they haven't been abused.

[beatnavy]

Thanks for the advice, all. Just to be clear, I'm probably not interested in home theater setup with this. The speakers and the room were oriented differently when the Sony dinosaur projector was on the ceiling versus how we have our flat screen setup today. Plus my wife and I don't really need that. Just looking for the option of piping some music around the house.

I'll acquire something cheap with which to test the setup and see if it's worth using, or if I should consider starting all new at some point. Part of my motivation is I like trying to resurrect / restore what this house has (or had). The previous owners put a lot of money into nice things (years ago), but many of those features fell into disrepair. I enjoy getting those things to work, if possible. If that's not possible or worth it, I'll eventually look into doing something with more current technology.