# house prewired, but no idea how to hook up



## fixrite

do you have access to the attic, if so I would start there. Having one speaker in each room is fine sound wise as it is not considered to be theatre sound quality rather just speakers. Another option is to look at your house plans as it should be included in the electrical wiring diagrams supplied to the electrician. Or call your builder.
Hope that has helped
Cheers


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## Greg C

No offense, but it seems that you are in over your head. You will be better off finding a local installer to handle this for you. Try www.cedia.net to find someone. If you had posted your location, I might have been able to refer you to someone.


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## Greg C

fixrite said:


> do you have access to the attic, if so I would start there. Having one speaker in each room is fine sound wise as it is not considered to be theatre sound quality rather just speakers. Another option is to look at your house plans as it should be included in the electrical wiring diagrams supplied to the electrician. Or call your builder.
> Hope that has helped
> Cheers


It is not fine to have only one speaker in one room unless the system is designed to be mono only. Otherwise you will have John and Paul singing in the Kitchen, while George and Ringo's instruments are playing in the Dining Room, or not at all if the VC is off.


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## fixrite

Not to sound negative or anything, but have recently viewed a $900,000.00 house, wired for sound throughout it. I noticed single speaker in hall, in powder room etc. Asked why it was not stereo in every room and it was stated to me that it was considered a sound system and not surround or stereo. The theatre room had true surround sound speakers as did the living room. It was pointed out to me that if you were in the master bath (which did have 2 speakers) you would not be able to determine stereo as our ears are pointed forward and not up. I am no expert, and was only re-iterating what I had been told by that builder.

Hope I have not offended anyone.
cheers


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## Greg C

No offence at all. If it was professionally done, there are 2 ways to accomplish this with 1 speaker.
1. Dual Voice Coil speaker. It is essentially 2 speakers in one. It has 2 tweeters and 1 woofer. It would have a total of 4 conductors to the speaker.
2. Mono. One regular speaker. But the output of the whole house system to that specific location is a mono signal. It would have a 2 conductor to the speaker.
We do this in long hallways for example.
My aim is to inform you so you can make the correct choice for yourself.


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## fixrite

thanks for the specifics on that as it did sound somewhat odd at the time but took the builders word on it

cheers


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## MorrissMediaSys

I would stick with a dual voice coil speaker. If you are wired for one. you will have to have two sets of speaker wire running to the speaker for a dual voice speaker to work. i.e. 2 lefts and 2 rights. As far a finding the speaker wire in the ceiling you will need to buy a tone generator. You can get them online or at home depot, lowes. They usually cost around $100 retail. 

Once you find the speaker wire in the ceiling, you will then use the stud finder to locate the studs on either side of the wire in the ceiling. You should be able to look at the ceiling and get an idea of the position of the speakers. Usually speakers will be wired to the center of both sides of the room. Mark your studs with tape so you dont lose them. Most inceiling speakers come with a pattern used to cut out the hole, if you have no pattern use the grill to trace around. Take your patern and measure off of the wall keeping in mind that the other speaker will have to match of you are putting 2 speakers in one room. Once you have your speaker where you want it trace around the pattern and cut out the hole. Find the speaker wire by feeling around in the ceiling. Install your speaker and your done. 

If that sounds like too much work then I would call a company to come and install. 
Volume control will mount easily in the wall plate, use the tone generator to make sure you have the correct wires connected. Some volue controls have settings for mono, or 2,4,8. Russound is an example. I would go ahead and put both speakers in each room. Save the trouble of worrying about line level output. I would complete the job as it was inteded to be, according to the wiring.


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