Need Help With Multi-Room Audio

We recently moved into a house that has in-ceiling speakers with in-wall volume controls in 10 different rooms in throughout the house. One of these rooms has in-wall speakers (two on one wall and two on opposite wall) with a single ceiling speaker (Dolby 5.1?).

These rooms are over two stories of our home. In the living room on the first floor we have a media cabinet in a built-in wall shelving unit where all the cables from the various speakers come out. The previous owner of the house left us with no marking on the cables indicating what cables go where, etc. I have uploaded pictures I've taken of the media cabinet, the cables and some of the components to my picasa web album (I can't submit URL as this is my first posting.) to help aid my explanation.

One of my challenges is
1. Identify what equipment I will need to supply sound to our various rooms
2. Identify a way to tone out the different cables to rooms to be able to label the cables correctly

I went to a local (Dallas, TX) professional A/V installation store yesterday to get some input on how to tackle this. They were more interested in selling me a packet solution than giving my an educational walk-through of what they could see in the pictures I brought with me on my iPad. They put together an initial proposal of what I would need based on the pictures. This was over $7000 with only high level component descriptions (like 9.1 receiver - $1700, 10 speaker selector - $700, Universal PC Programmable RMT - $600, RF Extender Longer Range - $250, 4 x 1.4 HDMI 2 meter - $600, etc...).

They offered to come to our house and do a walk-through and make sure the proposal was good and do a tone-out of the speakers.

From my investigation of the cables in the media cabinet, there are 10 cables (7 are white shielded (with 4 internal - red, black, green, white), and 3 grey/black (with 4 internal - red, black, green, white)). Additionally, there are two white shielded cables that are marked "front 5.1" and "rear 5.1" and a lose white cable with two of the 4 internals cut off, labeled center 5.1

The guys at the store told me I needed a powerful receiver to drive so many "zones" and that I would need a speaker selector to connect the speaker cables into. That makes sense. They also indicated that since I had volume control in each room, I didn't need a speaker selector with built-in volume control and that that would save me some money. I did stop by the local BestBuy last night to look around and the Magnolia sales rep indicated that I would need an amplified speaker selector. He also recommended a Pioneer Elite SC-55 (7.1) receiver.

The upstairs media room has 4 in-wall speakers and a large ceiling speaker. I assume this would be a Dolby 5.1 configuration. The pro A/V store recommended a RF extender to allow remote control of the receiver from the second floor.

This is all overwhelming and I'm not sure what questions to ask when it comes to the equipment. Do I need an amplified speaker selector ($1999) or can I use a regular Niles 10 speaker selector?

I have a Fluke Pro3000 Toner and Probe and was wondering if I can use that to tone out the speakers? I certainly don't want to damage anything so I'm not going to just try this until I have some indication that this will work. What do I need to turn the volume control to? Off, medium or all the way up?

I'll stop here and take it from there.

Thanks,
Mentor

Thanks for the response!

The media cabinet with all the cables is in the built-in cabinets in the livingroom and this is downstairs. We have a TV in the space above the media cabinet downstairs. We also have a TV upstairs in the media room. In the media room upstairs there's a wall plate behind the TV with 8 banana plug recepticals (pairs of 4 with each pair having a red and black ring), two coax outlets, a cat 5 outlet and an additional outlet (different from the banana plug outlet) labeled Sub (hand written with black marker). I have toned out the banana plug outlets and they map to the left and right front (in-wall) speakers and left and right rear (in-wall) speakers in the upstairs media room. These 4 pairs are labled LF Frnt, RT Frnt, LF RR, RT RR. I didn't tone the plug labeled SUB because the clips don't fit in the hole. This plug almost looks like a coax plug except that there are no screw threads on the outside and the center part of the plug has a red color around the center hole.

When trying to tone the white cables labeled "front 5.1" and "rear 5.1" in the media cabinet downstairs (red and black twisted together and connected to the black toner plug and green and white twisted together and connected to the red toner plug) I don't get any sound in the in-wall speakers upstairs. I also don't get any sound in the other zones when toning out the other cables. I'm not sure if my toner is powerful enough to drive the speakers. It's a Fluke Pro3000 toner.

Below is an attempt to show the layout of the first floor.

Sp denotes in-ceiling speakers. As you can see, there are 4 speakers in the living room, so it's possible that the 5.1 cables in the media cabinet (MD in the diagram) are for these speakers and I would need a separate sub woofer.

||======================================================|=== =========================|-- --- --- ---|
|| | |
|| |
|| Sp Sp |
|| | Garage Car port
|| Bedroom / master bath / closet |
|| |
|-------| | | |
| | ----------------------------------|----------| -|-----------------------|----|| |-----
| |------------FirePl--------MC----| | | || |
| | | | || Sp p
| | | || o
| Sp | Sp Sp | Laundry | || r |
| | | | | Wine || t |
| Fan | | -| Cellar Stairs || e
| | | | 2nd fl ||
Sp | Sp Sp | | | || Sp c |
| |----------- ---------- ------- o |
Balchony| Living c
| Hallway || h
---- - |-------- ------------|-- --------|| e
|| Kitchen | Dining | Library || r |
|| | | Sp || e |
|| | | ||
|| Sp Sp | Sp Sp | ||
|| | | ||
|| | | Sp ||
|| | | || |
============================================================ ========================================-- --|

Oops. That didn't come out very well. Let me see if I can submit the URL to picasa web album.

Here's the URL to the pictures.

https://picasaweb.google.com/mentorb...OGRxLfA2q7bhgE

Here's what I think is going on.

The 4 speakers in the ceiling in the living room on the first floor are wired for the Dolby 5.1 connection. I'm not, however, able to tone those with the Pro3000 toner. Not sure if that's because the toner doesn't have capacity to drive the speakers.

In the kitchen / living room area there are a total of 6 ceiling speakers and one wall unit volume control on the kitchen wall. I initially thought that that control would control all the 6 speakers (4 living + 2 kitchen), but I think the 4 living are separate and not part of the zone the volume control is for.

This means we have two 5.1 areas. The downstairs living room and the upstairs media room. The media rooms I've been able to tone out from the banana plug wall panel in the media room.

I wonder if the connection box (?) in the master closet could have anything to do with this. I sort of doubt it but I'd thought I'd ask. This is where our cable internet and cable tv come in and where network wiring to the various rooms take place. I'm not completely on top of all that's going on in this cabinet. Here are some pictures.

https://picasaweb.google.com/mentorb...Lvq6fTxq76k4gE

Could there be any connection to the audio wiring?

Would the power amp be a high-wattage receiver or would you go separate components? What would be a decent receiver?