House is wired for sound...how does it work?
 

Our house has a of bunch speakers scattered throughout...16 in all, including the front door landing. Under the house there's a collection of speaker wires hanging loose, but nothing to connect them to. There's an empty rack mount as the PO took whatever equipment was down there. What kind of device do all those wires plug into?

The equipment that the PO took with him. Should have wrote in the house contract that all sound equipment are to remain, just like washer/dryer and kitchen appliances.

I would venture to say that there was some sort of stereo/CD changer/reciever done there. I would also guess there was a switcher so different parts of the house could be turned on/off. Best buy sells an audio switcher that can handle multiple inputs and also have multiple outputs. I am surprised the PO did not have the cables labeled but that is easy to troubleshoot.

The house was a bank repo and they took everything that wasn't nailed down...including a built in refrigerator.

I think some of the cables are labeled. There are also cables that run from whatever was down there to the built in unit in the living room that the TV sits in. I suspect the sound system was run from a stereo in that location.

So, I'm thinking there was some sort of speaker junction under the house that interfaced with something in the living room. I've never seen a unit that accepts 16 speaker inputs...but I don't get out much.

Could be via multiple amplifiers. While not that extreme (16), I've got 4 amps (all through a single pre-amp and numerous sources) with wires running beneath my house to some of the speaker locations (rears and bedroom), and I'm just into 2 channel audio (just not into x.1 for home theater, etc.).

Go to a stereo store or Radio Shack, etc. Ask for a speaker splitter that allows one feed from your amp/cd stereo and then 4 or 5 jacks that can be switched on or off. Divide the house into 5 zones. Label the speaker wire pairs by finding out which goes where, then plug the appropriate wires into the zone you want them to be on.
Zones:
Living Room
Kitchen
Exterior
House
Bathrooms
or such, depending where the speakers are located. You can also feed a satelite radio to your amp; which is what I have in my home; I love it and you will too.
Cheers,

I "like" to think of myself as an audiophile (albeit low budget by today's standards), and although I was/am familiar with the "speaker splitters" that Rob mentions, that option makes me cringe :).

It wouldn't have been a simple speaker switcher. A 16 speaker load would drop the impedance to amplifier destroying levels. Chances are that it was a distribution amplifer with multiple class D amps. It was probably controlled from the media center area so you could turn on/off the different zones & use different sources. Are there any keypads in the different zones? Is there any labelling or markings that point to the installer that did the job?

If you want to revive it, you will have to throw some $s at it. Look for a custom install AV dealer in your area & get a quote. Depending on what you want, you could spend $5K or $100K on a distribution system.

Ian

I was waiting for Ian to chime in :). Question for ya... I'm an "audio hack" by your standards, but I "split" the signal coming out of my pre-amp's "A" outputs (just a basic "Y" splitter) diverting each channel into two amps (with gobs of power (1000 watts in mono mode)). I may be a heretic to the purists, but my system sounds great to everyone who's heard it including me (which is really all that counts). Am I doing something that makes "you" cringe?

edited: Theoretically, could I split the pre-amp signals even more as long as my amps have sufficient power to compensate?

To a point. The more you split the signal the more demands that you place on the pre-amp's power supply to output the voltage/impedance that the amplifier needs to produce it's maximum output.

As for the sonic degradation . . . connections are often the weakest part of the chain so in pure audiophile terms less equals more. And Y adaptors are usually POS's.

Ian

Most of the splitters/switchers only allow on/off. You will most likely want to move up to something that will allow you to control volume levels as well. ie if you have some in a hallway you would want them at a lower volume than in a bigger room or outdoor patio.

This company has everything you will need www.nilesaudio.com

Rich, I think the first thing to figure out is what wire goes where. Hooking up the signal is comparatively simple.

Electrical technicians use a device called a "tone generator" which is a transmitter box that emits a warbling tone into a wire-- you then use a probe with a speaker which is placed in close proximity to the wire and when you hit the right one, the speaker makes a noise. They are not that expensive, under $100 certainly. You could use this to figure out what goes where.

My old law professor used to say that the definition of a "fixture" which is an improvement so associated with the real estate as to be considered an inseparable part of it, was something that couldn't be removed by one man in one hour with a crescent wrench. So I don't think there's a legal argument that this equipment should have remained-- copper pipes are another matter entirely!

A couple things:

Are there volume controls anywhere in the house on the walls or anything?

You should pull a speaker out of the ceiling/wall and see if there's a transformer on the back of it. If there was a significant number of speakers, it's unlikely but possible that there was a 70-volt system installed. Sometimes they do that when there's a lot of speakers scattered throughout the house.

As someone who has done a few of these type of installs in my past, I would reccomend a unit like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Denon-POA-3012CI-12-CH-Multi-Zone-Power-Amplifier-NEW_W0QQitemZ350131882551QQcmdZViewItem

Obviously that is an expensive model, and there may be cheaper ones to have, but in my experience that is the way to go. You will find that it is capable of taking input from remote IR sensors so you can use remotes in the different rooms to control volume.

You might do an ebay search for Panja/phast/amx.....they make whole home audio switching equipment...a little older technology, but works and not nearly as pricey as newer HD/5.1 etc equipment. By chance do you have wall plates in each room to control the now missing equipment?

Oh...and a very easy way to test which speakers are associated with each wire....you can hook up a double A battery to the positive/negative on a pair...and the speakers should pop...if there are capacitors on the speakers, you will have to swap polarity to make it pop again.....Old car stereo install trick.

Somehow I knew this wasn't going to be cheap.

OK...I need to figure out what speaker wires go where. There are no volume or switching controls in the house.

Schumi, that looks like what I need.

Thanks for all the replies. You guys really helped me out.