Surround sound - have I got it?

[MantaMike]

I have recently moved house and the new place has a lot of home entertainment systems wired in, unfortunately I have no idea how any of it works or how to connect it. Apologies if theses are stupid questions, but I have no experience in home entertainment.

In my lounge there is a small speaker in each corner of the room, I am assuming this is for surround sound TV. I also have the below connectors mounted on the wall behind the TV.



Can anyone identify what these connectors are, if they are for surround sound, is it just a case of making a connection to an output on the TV? If so what output do they connect to and what cables are required?

The TV is a five year old Sony Bravia

Or do I need any other pieces of equipment?

I'd be grateful for any help!

[varsas]

The connectors labelled 'B1' and 'B2' are RJ45 connectors, most commonly used to run data networking around the house. There is almost certainly a central patch panel they all (all the ones in the house) terminate to. You certainly could use this cabling to run speakers if you want to, but I doubt that's why they were put in. There are other, far more interesting, things you can do with them. Like build a DLNA network.

The other terminals look like straight Coax to me, so I assume they are arial/satellite hookups. I'm not 100%

For surround sound you'll need a surround sound processor, as well as speakers. Your TV does not have one, so you'd need something external, like an AV amp, like this:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/s...

you'd connect DVD/blu ray player to the amp via HDMI, then the amp to the TV, also via HDMI. You have the amp deal with the sound and the TV for picture only.

Edited by varsas on Saturday 3rd October 16:24

Edited by varsas on Saturday 3rd October 16:26

Edited by varsas on Saturday 3rd October 16:26

[MantaMike]

varsas said:

The connectors labelled 'B1' and 'B2' are RJ45 connectors, most commonly used to run data networking around the house. There is almost certainly a central patch panel they all (all the ones in the house) terminate to. You certainly could use this cabling to run speakers if you want to, but I doubt that's why they were put in. There are other, far more interesting, things you can do with them. Like build a DLNA network.

The other terminals look like straight Coax to me, so I assume they are arial/satellite hookups. I'm not 100%

For surround sound you'll need a surround sound processor, as well as speakers. Your TV does not have one, so you'd need something external, like an AV amp, like this:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/s...

you'd connect DVD/blu ray player to the amp via HDMI, then the amp to the TV, also via HDMI. You have the amp deal with the sound and the TV for picture only.

Thanks for that, I suppose it was a bit naïve to think I could plug some wires in and away we go!

interesting comment about a central patch panel, I have this lot in the loft which scares the hell out of me!







There are speakers in the ceiling of every room and the speaker wires appear to go through this junction, then re-appear in the corner of the lounge. it seems a shame to have all this infrastructure and not use it, but I'm thinking I need a professional to sort it all out!

[Murph7355]

The gold connectors could be a few things, but look like they may be coax/satellite connections. Possibly something similar in the loft or a cable going outside?

The speaker cables in the lounge will be to connect up to a music source (an amp or similar). If they're not labelled it should be easy enough to see what goes where - plug in a music source, try each cable in turn and listen to where it comes out.

I'd be surprised if the panel in your loft didn't have equivalent labels on it to those on the wall sockets. You can use network cable for many things from pure network traffic to distributing HDMI etc signals. It really depends what you want set up.

As an example, present your broadband router up in the loft, add a network switch up there and you could have wired 'net access round the house. Add a NAS to the switch and you can stream whatever's on the NAS around the house. Again, if it's not labelled it should be easy enough t find out what goes where with a bit of time... 500 quid would be enough to get started if you have no kit right now.

(Or contact the house vendor and ask them what they used it for - if they installed it, they'd probably give you plenty of info...).

[VEX]

Those gold modules are speaker terminals. I am confident the will screw in and out and revel a hole through the middle to poke a speaker cable into.

The rack doesn't look to scary, if a little messy and sparse.

Where is the new house, I or a friend might be local enough to pop in and advise on what you have l.

V.

[gtidriver]

Thats a bit of a mess isn't it, I've got over a mile of cabling in my house, it all terminates in the cupboard under the stairs, I've made a list of what goes where so when i sell up the next owner can just plug and play,out of about 64 terminals around the house up until recently i used just one for the tv aerial in the living room, complete waste but was fun to do and will be handy one day when i install more tvs around the house.

[Monty Python]

Looks more like a combined RJ45/coax network connection - it's a bit odd to combine loudspeaker connections with network. Besides, you'd need another one for the other speaker and it does limit where you put them.

[Podie]

Take VEX up on his offer

[VEX]

If you zoom in on the first photo it is definitely a speaker terminal. You can just see the hole through the middle for bare wire termination.

V.

[TonyRPH]

VEX said:

If you zoom in on the first photo it is definitely a speaker terminal. You can just see the hole through the middle for bare wire termination.

V.

Odd that there is only a single pair though. Where are the rest of the speaker terminations?

Unless the original occupant was simply using a mono pair at the rear?

[Podie]

TonyRPH said:

VEX said:

If you zoom in on the first photo it is definitely a speaker terminal. You can just see the hole through the middle for bare wire termination.

V.

Odd that there is only a single pair though. Where are the rest of the speaker terminations?

Unless the original occupant was simply using a mono pair at the rear?

The OP says they are in each corner of the room.

[TonyRPH]

Podie said:

TonyRPH said:

VEX said:

If you zoom in on the first photo it is definitely a speaker terminal. You can just see the hole through the middle for bare wire termination.

V.

Odd that there is only a single pair though. Where are the rest of the speaker terminations?

Unless the original occupant was simply using a mono pair at the rear?

The OP says they are in each corner of the room.

The OPs original post implies 2 speakers and a single wall box

"In my lounge there is a small speaker in each corner of the room, I am assuming this is for surround sound TV. I also have the below connectors mounted on the wall behind the TV."

[megaphone]

Those gold connectors do look like speaker terminals. Possibly for a Sub? Are those the speaker cables in the bottom of the rack? The grey cables?

Also that white box in the picture looks like it could be an alarm panel, not a speaker junction box.

Edited by megaphone on Tuesday 6th October 15:51

[Oakey]

VEX said:

If you zoom in on the first photo it is definitely a speaker terminal. You can just see the hole through the middle for bare wire termination.

V.

Absolutely



Why only the one though? And how were they controlling the audio in each room?

ETA: I wonder if they were just using the phono out on the TV straight into the wall?