surround sound "pre-wire"

[jIM]

All-

If this is the wrong board for this, please comment.

I just purchased a new construction home. I purchased a surround sound pre-wire. This has left the wires dangling from dry wall... I was expecting some hookups for my speakers, not loose wires...

in addition the new stereo cabinet I bought has moved the receiver too far from the point where the wires could connect directly into the receiver. So a "face plate" was suggested to hook the wires behind the drywall into the face plate, then hook my receiver into the face plate.

third issue is the sub woofer is wired with coaxial cable (not RCA connections). I was told I could purchase a face plate which would convert co ax signal/ cable to an RCA plug.

My system includes:

pioneer receiver (RCA inputs for sub woofer) yamaha front speakers bose center speaker (needs RCA connection) infinity rear spreakers

My pre wire has 7 dry wall wire locations:

1&2) rear left and right speakers (these could hook right into rear speakers, but looks tacky coming out of dry wall.... thoughts?

3 and 4) front left and right speakers (one of these can hook directly into speaker, other wire might be a couple inches short, and these also look tacky comming stright out of dry wall.

5) center channel wire (I just realized I haven't pulled this wire out to see if it will reach my center channel)

6) sub woofer coaxial cable coming out of dry wall. My sub woofer cannot accept this cable

7) a 7th location which has the wires routed through it- 5 speaker wires and coaxial cable none of which reach my receiver and the co-ax needs to be converted to RCA.

If anyone has any experience dealing with a problem like this, please let me know.

best regards.

jIM

[SQLit]

By definition "pre wire" does not include trim. Or was your contract different? Surely you ASKED for details before paying for something....

I had a friend pay a builder for the same "service". It took us 3 days to get all of the pieces and parts to put his "pre-wire" into a finished product. He at least got a mud ring with a blank plate. He verified twice at my urging, the wires that were going to be pulled. They did not pull anything for the sub woofer. So that ended up on the punch list.... Lots of ruck.

Typically all of these wires are made up to a cover plate with a connection. Then a new wire is run from the cover plate/connector to the unit. Just a lot of splices as far as I can see.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, One thing, you never use coax for speaker hook up. Very wrong! Sounds like they messed it up pretty good. And I wonder why you mixed speakers with different brands?(none of my business anyhow) Ever considered in wall mounting speakers? Or wireless speaker hook up? I have wired 9.1 surround system myself. I used mounting plate behind speakers on the wall. Floor standing ones, I used speaker stand. They don't have to be geometrically symetrical, you can calibrate them after installation manually or automatically(if your receiver has this feature) I found out manual calibration is better. Try home theater NG as well. Good luck. Tony

[sleepdog]

For the walls you can cut out a rectangle around the protruding wires and install some "old work" telecom rings. They are yellow/orange and can be picked up at HD. You can fasten regular leviton wall plates to those that have the spaces for clipping in speaker connectors.

[jIM]

I asked several times and there were two pressing issues:

1) if I had to tear up any carpet to run my wires, my wife would kick me out, disown me, or otherwise make my life miserable.

2) the sales lady knew little and NO ONE answered my questions as we went into close. I am capable of fixing this, but am looking for opinions on how to fix it.

I asked for this to be on the punch list, but the builder refused to take responsbility (the builder referred me to the contractor, who did not return calls).

the speakers were bought at different times- I've had the infinity speakers for more than 15 years. They lasted through high school, college, all my apartments, and my condo. The yamaha's were on sale, bought them, same for the bose. I plan my purchases accordingly.

coax is used for some sub woofers nowadays, so I'm told. Not wrong, just an issue.

can anyone here verify that I can buy cover plates, screw these into the wall, and connect to cover plates?

[jIM]

the builders superintendant had some cases put in pre-dry wall (for $50). I have good rectangular cutouts already. This is looking like a good decision. I think all I need are the cover plates...

thank you for reply and confirmation.

[Art]

My pre-wire deal included boxes and face plates for front speakers but back speakers are wires behind sheetrock someplace.

[Art]

Coax is sometimes used for subwoofer. Very common.

[J.A. Michel]

I just bought some "old work" telecom rings and leviton faceplates yesterday for a structured wiring install that I'm planning.

Go here:

The website's a bit clunky and hard to navigate, but they have what you need.

J.A. Michel

[Doug Kanter]

Yes, you can buy these things, and unless you're a total klutz, you're often better off doing these finishing touches yourself, as opposed to having an electrician do it.

How far do you live from a real stereo store? Not Best Buy or Circuit City, but a specialty store. Get out the yellow pages and get in the car.

[Doug Kanter]

It sounds like he has an internally powered subwoofer, so he's sending preamp level signal via the coax. This isn't a problem.

[Doug Kanter]

You might also check around for connectors made by Monster Cable. The gold plating's pretty, but the real attraction might be somewhat more rugged plastic parts.

[PDQ]

What you are looking for are "banana" jack plates to put on the walls = and finish the pre-wire.

You will then have to solder proper length speaker wires to a "Banana" = jack on one end and "RCA" jacks to the other end for pluging into your = stereo/surround sound controller.

A similar hookup for the woofer will also be required. The coax here is = normal as the wires should all be shielded from stray noise input.

My speakers are of the variety that only requires bare wire to be pushed = into a spring clip. This, too, is normal.

Your best bet is to seek out a good stereo shop and ask a lot of dumb = questions in the hope of getting enlightened answers. Do your homework = before hooking up your system. It will save you a lot of anguish and = enhance your listening pleasure.

Just go to a well equipped stereo shop and they will have what you need = to do the job. Be aware that all stereo shops are not created equal. I = know of a few near me who only know how to charge.

--=20 PDQ

--

[Bill Kearney]

Who did YOU have a contract with? That's the party responsible. If it was the builder and he contracted it out then it's still the builder's responsibility. Whose name is on what YOU signed?

Most faceplates. An F-type connector provides a much more secure connection. They make cables that'll use it. Or they make adapters you can buy. I'd much rather have f-type connections on the wall that are securely attached to the in-wall wire than some fragile thing on the faceplate. If anything I'd go with connections that are f-type on the back side of the faceplate and RCA female, banana plug or screw terminals on the front. It all depends on what's being connected.

Sure, they even make modular faceplates that'd let you mix-and-match whatever connectors you need.

[jIM]

The builder told me the contract was with Guardian and the Guardian sales rep quit the week we closed, so no anwers were ever given.

I told the builder they referred me to Guardian and the builder said tough luck. Dixon builders definitely licks rocks. My super for Dixon is awesome, though. He referred me to Home depot and best buy.

I have the face plates for the walls alrready hooked in. I have some of my speakers hooked to them now. I have a master face plate I found at Best Buy (has 6 inputs in one 5x5 plate for center, left front and rear, right front and rear, and a 6th aux speaker.

My biggest issue now is trying to hook up the wall wires to this plate- the gold "rods" don't have the holes so slide the copper wire into before screwing down the "rods" to secure the wire. If this problem gets solved, I think I will have everything ready to go.

I bought a y cable to get my sub woofer single output from the receiver to the left-right input on the sub woofer. I am bypassing the coax within the wall- saved me buying a couple of cables and the sub woofer is about 3 ft from the receiver anyway. The left-right hookups on the sub woofer suggest it's "input2". Any thoughts if this will effect performance?

[mm]

Some speakers connect to plain wires, right? If you wanted another end for your speakers, maybe you should have told them what end that would be. But I don't see the problem. It's barely any harder to solder on a new end now than it would have been in advance.

The point of pre-=wire is that you don't have to open the walls to put in wires.

But regardless, you don't have to open the wires to attach ends to the wires.

What's wrong with that?. That's how I handled my own installation, where I ran the wires myself. Speaker wires, roof antenna jack, telphone jack, I attached them all to the walls, and ran wires from the jacks to the receiver, tivo, and telephone. That way, when I move or if I stop using them, there won't be wires dangling from the wall.

You don't need boxes to put these things in, because no one can get hurt from any of these wires. You can screw the face plate into the sheet roock, or you can buy a little galvanized rectangle, with some metal frames that bend over and clamp around the sheet rock, and screw the wall plates into that. Or you could just solder an end on the wire, and let it dangle from the hole in the wall, covered up by your book shelves or something.

I'm sure there is. There are connectors from just about everything to just about anything. If Radio Shack doesn't have one and the stereo store doesn't have one,, there's

and

Personally I don't know why coax is used for any speakers. Since speaker output isn't further amplified, any interference from radio signals or stray signals of any sort won't be heard through the speakers. And the purpose of coax is to prevent the reception of such signals.

This is different from cable tv from a box in the back yard, etc.. Those signals are amplified thousands of times, and the slightest amount of received interference will show up in the sound or picture or both.

More below ..

Are you saying here you want a plate and not just wires. I thought above you wanted the opposite. You could put the speaker in front of the wire, and if it doesn['t go there well, how much planning went into this project..

More below.

What is the problem again?

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[mm]

In that case I retract what I said about no coax for speaker wires.

Because actually these wouldn't be speaker wires. They are wires to a pre-amp or amp.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[mm]

I havent' seen yellow/orange, but I've seen galvanized.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[Steve Kraus]

Just curious: Did you select the number and locations or did they? I hope not them.

While plates and connectors might be a more elegant solution there's nothing wrong with hooking the wires directly to the speakers, assuming they left enough AND that the speaker will entirely hide it. Less things to interfere with the signal is a good thing. This is how surround speakers in movie theatres are normally installed.

I also hope these wires are home runs--each speaker wire is an independent run back to your central point. When there are multiple speakers for a channel as there would be in a larger installation the series or parallel decisions can be made or changed back at the central connection point not permanently made as part of the wiring installation.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Some receivers have lfe(low frequency effect)RCA jack which is for sub. Also you can adjust crossover freq on the receiver or at sub end if it has the feature(usually it has gain and cross over freq. adjusting pots) If you don't have lfe jack then tapping off the left RCA audio is common practice. Low frequency does not really have stereo effect. Most speaker wire binder is either by thumb screw or banana plug combination. Tony