[LBoskibear]

Hi Everyone -


Been reading here for a long time and now have a question that I hope may be simple for someone to answer.


I have a newish (3 years) house that was pre-wired for surround (the two back speakers in the ceiling).


I just bought a 5.1 system and tried wiring up the surrounds and only one of them worked and it's driving me nuts.


The box in the wall behind the receiver has 3 sets of speaker wires - each of those have 4 wires inside (red/black/green/white).


In the ceiling, each of the boxes has one wire with red/black inside.


I was able to get the left rear surround wired up but I can't get the right rear surround to work.


Am I supposed to use the green/white from the same set as the left rear or is it supposed to be one of the 2 other wires in the back that aren't used.


There is a set of speakers upstairs so I figured this was what the 3 wire sets were for: 1 for rear right, 1 for rear left and 1 for upstairs but maybe I'm mistaken.


any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[walbert]

The four conductor set can actually translate into two speakers, in other words the wiring you're describing may correspond to a total of six speakers. However that may not mean six total speakers are installed in the house - you may just have pre-wiring for some rooms (or the previous owners may have just taken some of the speakers with them, and left wires hanging about).


If you look at the wires leading to your installed speakers (as you've apparently already pulled one down), is one of them green/white? Do you have any documentation that goes with this stuff?

 

[LBoskibear]

Thanks for the recommendation. For some reason I had it in my head that each set of wires (red/black/green/white) was for a single speaker box/opening. It never occurred to me that I should split up the red/black for Left or Right and then the green/white for Right or Left.


I'll give that a try.


It leaves a little mystery of what that third set of wires is for as I've only detected 2 sets of speaker boxes in the house (living room + bedroom).

 

[walbert]



Quote:
Originally Posted by LBoskibear /forum/post/20825042


Thanks for the recommendation. For some reason I had it in my head that each set of wires (red/black/green/white) was for a single speaker box/opening. It never occurred to me that I should split up the red/black for Left or Right and then the green/white for Right or Left.


I'll give that a try.


It leaves a little mystery of what that third set of wires is for as I've only detected 2 sets of speaker boxes in the house (living room + bedroom).

This is where I'd start looking for terminal boxes, or wires hanging out of the ceiling somewhere - perhaps there were outdoor speakers? Speakers in a basement or garage? etc


Assuming this setup was done logically, the green/white pair out of the jacket that has the red/black lines for the speaker you can get working, should power the speaker you're having trouble with. Should.