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New pre-wired home

post #1 of 8
5/26/09 at 11:14am
Thread Starter 
Hello all. Just bought a 5 year-old home that was pre-wired for sound, yet apparently no one ever took advantage of it. Here's what I have found:

Blank plate in living room wall, when I took off the plate there were 2 white cables with 4 wires inside each. I think they are red-black-blue-yellow. I'm assuming they are speaker wire? I have traced two of these to the back of the room.

There are also two 1/4" black unterminated cables (coax?) in this spot. Possibly a subwoofer? The builder left a vague diagram showing the approximate locations of the ceiling wires (no plates, though), also showing a spot on the left side of the room marked "subwoofer". There is a blank on that left side, but I haven't opened it up yet.

At this point I am looking to setup a simple 2-speaker sound system with ceiling speakers.

Thanks for any help.
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post #2 of 8
5/26/09 at 2:37pm

Re: New pre-wired home

Coax works great for subs. You just need to terminate the cables with RCA plugs. Or do like I did and terminate with F-connectors and use wall plates with F to RCA jack adapters built in.

What is the purpose of a 2 speaker system with ceiling speakers? Background music? Ceiling speakers should never be used for critical listening.

-Robert
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post #3 of 8
5/26/09 at 3:28pm
Thread Starter 

Re: New pre-wired home

Thanks. Yes, it is pretty much background music. Now that I've looked at it, I notice that I have 3 sets of the white cables. Is this standard, to run cable for 6 speakers, and 2 coax?
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post #4 of 8
5/26/09 at 7:00pm

Re: New pre-wired home

How thick are the colored wires inside the white sleeve? If they are really thin it may be a home networking cable of some kind. Although hard wiring for home networking is going the way of the dinosaurs.

If they do turn out to be networking cables and not for audio, since you already have a plate giving you access to behind your drywall it would be a simple matter to climb up in the attic, drop wires down to this box, and place the other ends wherever you wanted on a nearby ceiling.
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post #5 of 8
5/27/09 at 9:02am
Thread Starter 

Re: New pre-wired home

Thanks. They look to be 16 gauge.
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post #6 of 8
5/27/09 at 12:40pm

Re: New pre-wired home

Ah, ok. Then you can use them for whatever you want, including speakers, so long as they are multi stranded
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post #7 of 8
5/27/09 at 1:26pm

Re: New pre-wired home

The white cables are probably just telephone wire - 16 ga solid copper. they are fine for background music system, but not so wonderful for serious audio. Oh, sure they'll work, but 16 guage is kinda small. Network cable would have eight wires, arranged as four twisted pairs. The coax could be for anything....
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post #8 of 8
5/27/09 at 1:54pm

Re: New pre-wired home

It could be something like this. I've also seen similar wire at Lowes and Home Depot.

-Robert
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