[adrianzehn]

First up, I am a complete newbie when it comes to home audio systems....


I know quite a bit about professional video production, so this helps a little....but I am mostly unfamiliar with the specific terminology and wires, connectors etc used for home audio..........


So I recently moved into a house where the livingroom is pre-wired for surround 5.1 audio. As there are wires hanging out of the walls, I figured I better get some speakers to cover them up.....so may as well set up a basic 5.1 system with my HDTV.


So I bought a cheap yamaha HTIB system, because the guy at the store said this was the only HTIB system they had which would work with standard speaker wires (others used their own proprietary systems).


Now I am trying to figure out how to get this to work....


There are a few different types of wires / connectors coming out of the wall at the central TV / receiver position.


There is one cable with 4 wires in it, ( green, red, black and yellow ).


There are also two blue RCA style connectors on the end two separate black cables that are each dual cables (not sure of the correct terminology here - the black cables clearly have two separate wires in them - they are kind of like two thin black cables joined together, ending in an RCA connector). I presume that these are meant to plug into my receiver outputs for the front L & R speaker, however there are no RCA style outputs for the speakers on my receiver. Can I just cut off the RCA plugs and then strip back to the wires on the end and connect these to the red and black speaker connections? Or can I get another RCA / speaker wire cable, strip one end and plug that into the receiver, while using a female / female adaptor to connect the RCA ends to each other. I would like to do this because if what I'm doing doesn't work, I would rather not have cut off RCA plugs that I actually need in the end.



In the walls at the speaker connections there are two separate wires that I see will plug into the red and black connectors on the back of my speakers.


Sorry for the long post.....


AZ

 

[adrianzehn]

Any ideas?

 

[Easyaspie]

If there is nothing labled, is it possible to get the guy(s) who wired the house back in?

 

[rdgrimes]

A trip to Radio Shack or even Home Depot should yield a continuity checker or tools designed for just this purpose. The RCA plugs may have been intended for sub-woofers, it's hard to say. But simply tracking which wire goes to where is the ticket. If there's a junction box at the HT/TV position, you need to open that and see what's in there. Any other boxes should be opened as well, in case lines are run through one box to another. But so far you haven't described enough wires for a 5.1 setup.

 

[In2Photos]

Got any pictures you could share?


The one cable with 4 wires in it sounds like a four conductor speaker wire (although I am used to seeing red, black, green, and white, not yellow). But where it goes is another story. There are several ways to test speaker wire, but if we could see some pics first it would help.

 

[adrianzehn]

I found out from the previous owner of the house that he had a BOSE Lifestyle system....


From what I can tell online, they use these RCA plugs for the outputs on the receiver, but normal dual speaker wire to plug into the actual speaker....


So....can I just cut off the RCA plugs and sheer off some of the rubber outer shell on the cable and put them into the red / black outputs on my YAMAHA receiver?


AZ

 

[adrianzehn]

Anyone know?

 

[wibbman]

I just got replies to a similar question in another section. Here's the link--just gotta figure out which end goes with which end.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1162821