# Surround speaker wiring advice / labeled speaker wall plates



## JohannGambolputty (May 2, 2021)

First, just a general comment / beef: Why do all the fancy labeled wall plates for 7.x/9.x surround include the front speakers? How many people actually pre-wire their front speakers, particularly the center channel? If your front speakers are free standing you'd have to add 4 wire breaks per connection to wire in-wall. The wires are easy enough to hide in or behind a front cabinet that most people have to hold components, discs, center channel speaker, etc.

Anyhow...

Q1: General advice on pre-wiring my 19x11 ft theater room:

Front will have a low cabinet under a wall-mounted 75 inch OLED. It will hold my Denon AVR-X3700H 9.2 receiver and center channel. The front towers will sit L/R of the cabinet. No need for in-wall wiring on all that except for the TV's power, A/V and CAT6 which will be done in-wall from behind the cabinet to just below the TV mount plate.

For speakers, the AVR has outputs for:
Front L+R + Center
Surround L+R
Surround Back L+R
Height 1 L+R
Height 2 L+R
Subwoofer 1+2

That's 13 total speakers! I do not intend to use all 13 at once but I do want to prewire both the Surrounds and Heights to preserve all my options down the road. The question is should I use the Surrounds (wall-mounted 2 ft above ears) or Heights (ceiling mounted), or a mixture of the two - if that's possible and desirable.

Q2: In light of what I want above, any recommendations for wall plate systems for no fronts? I am looking now at the On-Q WP9009-WH-V1 7.1 Home Theater Connection Kit. If I buy two of those and frankenstein them I can get my eight surrounds/heights on one double gang. Then I'd probably use another custom single gang for the rear subwoofer, CAT6 and dual Coax from my cable feed.

Thanks in advance,
Johann


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## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

I have that exact 11.2 Speaker System, built just before Dolby Atmos came out, lol.
[Just different Amps and Surround processor.]

You should look at the Speaker placement Guide they have here:








Dolby Atmos Speaker Setup Guides


Browse our wide-range of Dolby Atmos speaker step-by-step setup guides to find the best speaker placement and configuration for your home theater.




www.dolby.com




That will definitely get you started.
Give us some Feedback and if you like, post some pictures.
Cheers,


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