Please identify these speaker wires / system?

btcharpied

Hi all,

I'm hoping you can help me. Let me preface this by saying that I am the noob of all noobs when it comes to stereos, speakers, etc.

We recently bought a new house and it is decked out with approximately 24 interior speakers and six exterior speakers.

There are six rooms in the house that have controls that look like this:



(sorry for the blurriness, but they have the controls of cd1, cd2, dm1, dm2, aux, tape and of course volume)

I can't get these to turn on right now, so I assume they are triggered / powered someway by the stereo system once the plugs are inserted.

The plugs are what really throw me for a loop because I can't find any picture of them anywhere, thus I don't know what kind of stereo I should be looking for.

Here are the plugs:



All are connected and it looks like they should plug directly into a receiver, but I have never seen a receiver in a store that has such an insert, let alone six of them. What do I do with these things? What receiver would take such a plug?

Thanks for your help! And, again, I beg that you remember I'm a noob in your explanations

gregzoll

No way to really tell you, other than find out from the previous owners who wired it up and have them show you how to use it.

btcharpied

So are you saying those aren't normal wired plugs that you'd simply jack into a receiver?

gregzoll

No, again, you need to contact either local companies that do Smart Home wiring, or the person that you bought the home from. They may have used a "Whole House" or Multi-Channel Amp, and it would have that type of connector on it, dependent on the company. There are some higher end equipment that uses that connector.

Find a local private owned Audio-Video dealer, not Best Buy's Magnolia, or even send a better picture of the plate where that wire comes out of (Wide angle, not Macro Shot), and that connector to Crutchfield, and one of their experts may be able to help you out. A little secret though, if you are just going to use a low end receiver for sound, and not a multi-channel amp that lets you allow users around the house to pick their music or video source, you can just remove the connector from those wires for the speakers. You can not tell me, that some kind of info was not left in the packet of user manuals for all of the house equipment (stove, fridge, alarm system, garage door opener, etc.).

btcharpied

Nah, no info was left. The house was a short sale, so the old owners didn't sell this thing on the best of terms. Long story, but we were quite glad that the place was as intact post-closing as it was.

I was thinking of doing just what you said - pulling the plugs out and just using the red/black wiring for the receivers. I'm not really concerned with allowing every room in the house pick their own music, so I'm thinking that is the best route to go for now.

The old owner said that he purchased a receiver for it that ran him $9,000 and wanted to sell it to me for $2,000. Not being a big stereo / music / surround sound guy, I passed on the offer. I was simply shocked that there were receivers out there that cost that much!

Probably will go the cheap route for now and if I like what I get out of it, take the plunge later on with a 'biggie'.

gregzoll

Look at the pricing on Crutchfield for multi-room amps, they can be had around your price range. As for the $9k, yes it is expensive, and is more of a hobby when you spend that much on a/v. We still do not have a home theater in our house, because we can not see spending $2,500 on the one that we like, nor really need it, so we just do without.

AllanJ

There is or was a control unit somewhere. If the control unit is missing you will not be able to use the
push buttons on the control panels in the various rooms.

Also you should trace the wiring back to where the control unit and/or the stereo system itself
is supposed to go. Depending on the way you rewire it, each room may have different music
piped to it, although you wil need a different amp for each music program played at the
same time.

You may be able to put a selector switch where the push button panel is, so you can choose
the musical program at the room instead of going down to the equipment location.

__________________
The disadvantages of crab apple trees. In summer, the apples are too sour to pick and eat. In winter the birds come and leave dropping all over the place.

chesney16

I have been doing custom home audio and video install for 5 years now. Your house is wired for audio distribution (possibly video). That plug goes to a multi zone multi channel reciever/amp. It's a four wire cable. Usually red/black is for one speaker and green/white is for another speaker. All the wiring in the different rooms should all come to one central location..hall closet, entertainment center, ect. Go online and google Elan Home Systems or Niles audio. In my opinion these are the two best companies out there. Another less expensive way is Denon.

A multizone control system is essentially a switch box that allows you to send a selected source (CD, FM radio, tape, etc.) to a specific room in your home. The control system can be a device that sends a line-level signal to an amplifier in the remote room(s), or it can have built-in amplifiers that send speaker level signals to the selected rooms(s). All of these types of systems allow you to listen to different sources simultaneously in different zones and are available in many configurations from four to as many as eight or more zones

orangeproav

These are Phoenix connectors BTW, in case you were wondering. Many amps and speaker selectors have these connections, as opposed to the spring clips (red and black buttons) or 5-Way binding posts (screw down through the side of the post for bare wire or banana plugs for insert into the port on the front of the post).

JPL

It may be Matrix Audio- especially if you don't have cat5 going to keypads. Matrix uses speaker cable run through the keypad locations for control. From the perspective of this tech, Élan is over-priced and under featured.

Ron6519

Take off a cover plate and look at the unit. There should be some identification on that, usually the back.
Ron