Still need help.... dont laugh please! (1 Viewer)

[CRTLMB]

A little history:

I have a home theater in a box. I added to speakers outsdie on my patio. I was wondering if I can purchase a speaker selector switch to control all of the speakers. I was advised to purchase a single source selector switch. Well I purchased the Phoenix Gold single source speaker selector switch and I am still confused. What goes where? The Panasonic DVD Home theater in a box that I have is model SC-HT670. I do not understand what wires go in the input and output slots on the speaker selector switch. Please help. My theater in a box does not have amplifier wires. Please help.

Thanks,
Carl

 

[Seth=L]

What exactly do you mean by it has no amplifier wires?

The system according to Panasonic's website comes with 3x13' cables for you front left, right, and center and 2x33 foot cables for your left and right surrounds. In order to do the setup you wanted to do you with need the speaker selector and depending on how fair the patio is from the Panasonic you will likely need at least 50ft-100ft. Off of the wire you buy cut about 2-3ft to connect the receiver's front left and right to the left and right INPUT on the speaker selector. Then the speaker selector should have at least two sets off OUTPUTS with one set you can connect your indoor speakers and the other set of outputs you can connect the outside speakers using the speaker wire that you buy. You can buy extra speaker wire virtually anywhere, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or a hardware store.

Note: The speaker outs are signified by speaker clip terminals on the rear of the Panasonic head unit. Don't think I am trying to insult your intelligence or anything, I just want to be sure you can get this done so you can enjoy the spoils.

Seth=L

 

[CRTLMB]

Okay, so the speaker wires from the speakers go into the speaker selector switch. How does the selector switch power on?

Here is a pic of the selector switch:

http://www.plasma.com/selectors/largeimages/ism-4.jpg

Would you be able to tell me how to set this up. I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Carl

 

[David_Miller]

To answer the first question, it doesn't. And shouldn't need to. It's just a fancy way of basically splicing the wires together.

Ok, here's a step by step of what you need to do. You appear to have two options on how to set this up, which I will address after I address something that you need to do regardless of which option you choose below.

Step 1. Determine which channels of audio you want to have the ability to listen to on the patio. Probably the left front and right front channels.

Step 2. Take the speaker wires coming from the HTIB for the left front and right front speakers and connect those wires directly from the HTIB to the red and black connections on the top left of the switcher.

Step 3 OPTION 1: Option 1 is to then hook up the left front and right front speakers to the "output" connections on the bottom left directly under the input connections. Doing this should mean that those speakers will always work when you are sending out of the HTIB.

Step 3 OPTION 2: Option 2 is to hook up the left front and right front speakers to the Zone 1 outputs. Doing this will allow you to turn off those speakers when you have the ones on your patio working (but your other 3 speakers (center, back left and back right) will continue to work.....)

Step 4: Hook up the patio speakers to Zone 2 outputs. When you want sound out there, select zone 2 and those speakers should work.

Regardless, by hooking it up this way your center, back left and back right speakers will work while Zone 2 is selected because there is no switching of those speakers. If that doesn't matter, then this will work fine (and if so, I would choose Option 1 above otherwise it will sound weird in the house with option 2).

Hope that helps.

 

[Seth=L]

If he is listening to a stereo program then the center and surrounds don't even need to be on. The only thing that will be on in the house is the subwoofer which I guess is kind of weird.

The speaker selector is passive and requires no power to operate.

Order of connections: Panasonic DVD player head unit speaker left and right front speaker terminals-left and right input on speaker selector connect panasonic indoor speakers to Zone 1 or Output-then connect the speakers outside to Zone 2.

If you connect the indoor speakers to the Output the inside speakers will be on all the time even when Zone 2 is on. If you connect the inside speakers to Zone 1 you can decide to shut them off and just use the outside speakers (note the subwoofer will still be on no matter what unless you manually shut it off). Also note that by using both speakers at once cuts your power in half.
Lastly, some home theater in a box uses a crossover for the satelite speakers to protect the small speakers from the stress of playing low bass. It is not likely you will be able to deactivate this function because the HTIB was designed for use with the speakers it comes with. I am not saying that the speakers that you bought for the outside won't work with the system, but simply that the bass may simply not be present in the speakers. So if the speakers have no bass don't blame them because it is probably the Panasonic.

Seth=L

 

[CRTLMB]

I will be trying this setup this week. I will let you know how everything turns out. Thanks for all of the help.

Carl

 

[CRTLMB]

Okay.... well I tried this tonight. I hooked up the front l and r channels to the input on the selector switch. I then hooked up the inside speakers to zone 1 and the 2 outdoor speakers to zone 2. Everyhting works great, but there is one problem. When I watch movies, I do not get the surround sound. All of the speakers are playing the same sounds at the same time. How do I correct this problem? Did I hook something up wrong?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Carl

 

[CRTLMB]

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Carl

 

[JeffLab]

What "mode" is your receiver in? Is it in "all channel stereo"? You want it in either DTS or Dolby Digital for surround sound. Also, make sure you have it hooked up using the digital audio output/input.