We have a new home that has been pre-wired for speakers in 4 areas. Each of these pre-wired rooms have a face-plate where some sort of volume control device will be. It may control other things too. From what I understand, we would need to buy some kind of central system, speakers for all the pre-wired rooms and put a control panel where each face plate is.

Is this something that someone pretty technical could do(i.e. my husband), or is it something that only a professional could do. Also, where would you find the hardware to install, a specialty store or would they have something at say, Best Buy. I don't know a whole lot about this stuff, so any help would be appreciated.

you will need to check with your home builder and find out exactly "what" was installed and how it was intended to be used. Along with the blank box, are speakers installed in the room and how many ?

Is there somewhere in the house where all this wiring "home runs" to ? If you take the cover off the wall boxes, what is inside in the way of wiring ? Does the wiring just end at the box, or does it seem to continue on to somewhere else ?

Yes, all the wiring ends at a closet. All of our phone, cable, audio, internet, ends at one box. You can see all the pairs for the speakers that have been pre-wired. No speakers are installed yet. From what I have been told, we would need to buy a central system and when it is all installed we would be able to control the system from the wall control in each room or a remote of some sort. We need to buy all these pieces. I am wondering though, if this is something that you can buy at Best Buy or do you need to go through a specialty retailer? And how hard to install would it be. Thanks

This could be really easy or really difficult depending on how everything was wired. Also if you just want basic functionality or something more complex. If you could post a couple pics, maybe someone could make some recommendations. Can you take a picture of the wires in one of the control boxes and the speaker wires in the closet and post them?

If the house is wired with standard speaker cable with two pair going to each room running through the control box in each room first, then a basic setup would be easy. The most basic setup would be a speaker selector in the closet with each room connected to it. You could then use the buttons on the switch to decide where you want music. That would then be connected to a receiver or an amplifier to provide the music source. Then in each room you could install a volume control in each control box and install the speakers of your choice.

There are many great sources online to buy this stuff. See if you can get a couple pics up and you'll be able to get help here.