I bought a house that came pre-wired for home theater surround and whole house audio. I'm confused by what I found when I opened the face plates in the home theater room. There are 5 wire locations. 1 location has a single 2-conductor wire. The other 4 each have 2 2-conductor wires. Back at the home run, there are only 4 2-conductor wires and a CAT5 wire. Can someone please explain this, and how I would go about installing my speakers.

Thanks.

You would have to tone it out. Cat 5 could have been for Audio/Video Server, Keypad control, many things. Need to find other end, maybe an office or where all wires go to central location,
You will need to Test out the pairs of wires, How ever they are run will largely determine what you can do without extra wiring.
Do you have speakers in 4 rooms?

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Originally Posted by htnewbie

I bought a house that came pre-wired for home theater surround and whole house audio. I'm confused by what I found when I opened the face plates in the home theater room. There are 5 wire locations. 1 location has a single 2-conductor wire. The other 4 each have 2 2-conductor wires. Back at the home run, there are only 4 2-conductor wires and a CAT5 wire. Can someone please explain this, and how I would go about installing my speakers.

Thanks.

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The CAT5 is home run back to a closet in another room. The speaker wires I'm asking about are all in the same room and are home run to a location in that room. I've tried toning them, but all wires at the home run tone at the same volume. In fact, they all tone just as loud even it I don't have the tone generator box hooked to anything. This is what is confusing me.

Shorting of the pair will stop tone on all pairs, if you short a pair the tone is not on, tone will remain.
Clip tone generator on a pair in a remote location, they all(most) go to central location, then touch 2 wires of a pair, if tone stops, you are on correct pair. If you had audible capability, same process.
If it has an indicating light, you could use a spare set of eyes(have some one yell when it lights.
Or, verify all wiring is open(No connection), short a pair, look for shorted pair at central location, repeat.
You don't wan't to do it backwards(Hook tone at central location, and look through house for signal), also if it puts out a tone and speakers are hooked up, put tone on pair and listen to speaker, then identify next.

One addition to Strat's previous note.

You do know that each speaker will take a pair of wires. What you need to know is which lead is the common return line. For example, My Atlantic Research speakers use a red post to signify the sound in line and black for the return line.

By toning back, you are looking for the wire pairing that goes to , say the left rear wall. When you find that pairing, that's where the left side or rear speaker is going to go.

So you connect your AVR's "Left Rear Speaker" to that post, then move to the next pair.

Personally I prefer the way Strat has you jumper the two leads together, then search the pairs of wires and look for zero (0) resistance. Do you have a Volt Ohm meter? If you do not, they are fairly low priced for what you need. Set the meter at 1K Ohms and clip the black probe to one wire if the needle or digital show Infinite restiance then that par is nt the pair you clipped together. I the analog or digital meter show no resistance in "Ohms" then it is the correct pair. Until you are ready to install the speaker, put a label tag on the wire so that you know where it goes.