Help With Whole Home Speakers

[Sonicpharmacist]

I’ve been living in my house for 5 years now, and one of the things I love about my house is it came with a whole home speaker system. However, when we moved in, there were no instructions on how to get it to work. There are lots of wires and devices, but what goes where? There’s also an extra router with a separate wifi setup. Here are some pictures.
1. First is what looks tl be an amplifier. Weird thing is that the DC/transformer has been split and has a grey RCA plug


2. Next is the speaker wires.



3. Next is the wires from the wall. Not sure what this is for.


4. A white cord from the wall


5. Speaker RCA cords coming from the wall


Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

 

[Melt Face Molly Drop]

I’ve been living in my house for 5 years now, and one of the things I love about my house is it came with a whole home speaker system. However, when we moved in, there were no instructions on how to get it to work. There are lots of wires and devices, but what goes where? There’s also an extra router with a separate wifi setup. Here are some pictures.
1. First is what looks tl be an amplifier. Weird thing is that the DC/transformer has been split and has a grey RCA plug View attachment 104011
View attachment 104012

2. Next is the speaker wires.
View attachment 104014
View attachment 104015

3. Next is the wires from the wall. Not sure what this is for.
View attachment 104016

4. A white cord from the wall
View attachment 104017

5. Speaker RCA cords coming from the wall
View attachment 104018

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

#3 looks to be either an ethernet port or a way to plug in a landline phone (more likely the latter)

 

[kvetcha]

You’ll want to run input to the Lepai, output to the Amplifier section of the speaker selector, and then engage the various speakers using the toggles on the front of the selector. Unsure what the #3 is about. #5 look like component video cables.

 

[Sonicpharmacist]

You’ll want to run input to the Lepai, output to the Amplifier section of the speaker selector, and then engage the various speakers using the toggles on the front of the selector. Unsure what the #3 is about. #5 look like component video cables.

Any idea what #4 is about? And how do I get it connected to the WiFi, or is that even a possibility?

 

[imtheocean]

Once you get it going, if you want to stream wirelessly through the speaker you can put a bluetooth adapter through the lenpai. I've used this one before:

Amazon product ASIN B016NUTG5K

 

[kvetcha]

Any idea what #4 is about? And how do I get it connected to the WiFi, or is that even a possibility?

I don’t know what that cord is about, but it seems like you can hook up whatever input you like to the Lepai. Maybe a Sonos Port or something similar?

 

[Sonicpharmacist]

There’s more to the story.

By the TV there are some more hookups.


6. No idea what these are for….

7. Component wires? Speaker wires that travel to the closet?


8. Does this connect to the white box in the closet?

 

[kvetcha]

There’s more to the story.

By the TV there are some more hookups.
View attachment 104066

6. No idea what these are for….View attachment 104067

7. Component wires? Speaker wires that travel to the closet?
View attachment 104068

8. Does this connect to the white box in the closet?
View attachment 104069

The component cables are for video. They likely had a receiver or DVD player in that closet connected to a pre-HDMI TV. The speaker wire might be something as simple as an intercom hookup. Can probably be safely removed/pulled through.

You could probably tie a cable you actually want to the existing ones and use them to pull through. Ethernet or whatever.

 

[kvetcha]

Also I'm guessing the standalone speaker wires were for hooking up a center channel.

 

[Sonicpharmacist]

I wound up calling the local installers, got the guy on the phone. He asked for my address, and turns out he lives a block away frome me. He just stopped by on his way home from work, and said probably what you all were saying, to plug in the receiver/bluetooth into the Lepai, and connect it to the amplifier on the speaker box. He also said the bare wires under the tv are center channel (no idea what that means), and the other cables are component.

So I bought the bluetooth box from Amazon and will get it hooked up.

Another question…we listen to SiriusXM on our Firestick (on the tv). If i wanted to use it for the whole home speakers, would I use the component cables?

 

[kvetcha]

I wound up calling the local installers, got the guy on the phone. He asked for my address, and turns out he lives a block away frome me. He just stopped by on his way home from work, and said probably what you all were saying, to plug in the receiver/bluetooth into the Lepai, and connect it to the amplifier on the speaker box. He also said the bare wires under the tv are center channel (no idea what that means), and the other cables are component.

So I bought the bluetooth box from Amazon and will get it hooked up.

Another question…we listen to SiriusXM on our Firestick (on the tv). If i wanted to use it for the whole home speakers, would I use the component cables?

Component is an old pre-HDMI video cable format, you’re unlikely to use them for anything apart from hooking up older video game systems and they can probably be removed.

[edit: doing a little follow-up reading, component video cables are 75 ohm and should work fine as audio interconnects if you want to use them that way.]

The center channel wiring is for, well, a center speaker, to handle dialogue for the TV. It makes sense to wire it separately since there will never be a need to route it through the whole-house system.

I might suggest just acquiring an endpoint that can can do SiriusXM and live in the closet with the amplifier. Once you get into trying to send audio from a TV to a system you’re dealing with HDMI ARC and that involves buying a receiver and it would just complicate things considerably.

 

[imtheocean]

I might suggest just acquiring an endpoint that can can do SiriusXM and live in the closet with the amplifier. Once you get into trying to send audio from a TV to a system you’re dealing with HDMI ARC and that involves buying a receiver and it would just complicate things considerably.

Or use Sirius XM app on your phone / computer and send it through to the bluetooth connection.