Audio Cables for Built in Speakers

markjanzen

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I recently moved to a new place and I'm trying to set up the home theatre but as a noob I have some questions. There are built in speakers in the ceiling but I'm a bit perplexed by the cables. Three of them have a black, white, red and green wire. One of them only has a black and white wire. There is also the subwoofer cable. What kind of A/V unit do I need to make this work and do I need to by front facing speakers or will the built in ceiling speakers do the job?
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I don't know about the wiring, but those ceiling speakers could be used for dolby atmos, if they're four speakers in line you wouldn't use all four, probably just the outer two.

You'd need a AVR capable of Atmos, with amplifier channels built in for atmos/heights.

You will need a least stereo speakers, but you also have center, surrounds, sides. For atmos you can have one pair, two pairs, or three pairs, depending on your AVR/AV Pre.
 
That is a bit of an odd arrangement tbh.
If you cant make out which cable goes where a simple trick is to use a "AA" battery on each pair of the four wires in turn to see which speaker makes a click when touching the wires on the speaker.
Bit odd that there only 3 of the cables have 4 wires and 1 has only a pair.

It's possible that 2 pairs of wires in one cable were used to lower the resistance of the cable runs by using for example - black/white for + and green/red for - .
For instance they may have started with one cable black/white, then thought afterwards to use 2 pairs for one speaker. To be sure I would pull out the speakers from the ceiling to figure out what's actually going on and how they are wired up. I notice some black marker on some of the cables which might also give a clue.
You would also need a center speaker and left and right front pair, you could configure the ceiling speakers as surrounds.
 
That is a bit of an odd arrangement tbh.
If you cant make out which cable goes where a simple trick is to use a "AA" battery on each pair of the four wires in turn to see which speaker makes a click when touching the wires on the speaker.
Bit odd that there only 3 of the cables have 4 wires and 1 has only a pair.
I'm not sure it is odd.
4 x 3 + 2 is 14 which is enough wires to run + and - for seven speakers and the image looks like it has seven speakers (a row of three and a row of four). My guess is that the four wire cables are running two speakers each. It's uncommon for sure.

It's possible that 2 pairs of wires in one cable were used to lower the resistance of the cable runs by using for example - black/white for + and green/red for - .
For instance they may have started with one cable black/white, then thought afterwards to use 2 pairs for one speaker. To be sure I would pull out the speakers from the ceiling to figure out what's actually going on and how they are wired up. I notice some black marker on some of the cables which might also give a clue.
You would also need a center speaker and left and right front pair, you could configure the ceiling speakers as surrounds.
This is probably the best way to be sure, take the speakers out and have a look.
But all speakers in ceiling won't give much of a surround field, and four in a line like that wouldn't work for a 7.1 config either.
 
That's my guess. There are 7 speakers, each speaker needs two wires, so 14 wires in total.

You normally do this, using 7 cables, each cable had 2 wires (2 core), with one of them marked black, so you plug them in correctly on AVR and speaker.

My guess is, someone picked a 4 core cable, split it at the end, sent 2 wires to one speaker and 2 wires to the other speaker. Will work fine, you only need to connect copper cables from speaker to amplifier, But the issue is you have 4 different colours, so unless you fitted them you won't know which cables goes to what.

I've never tried an AA battery myself, but if it was me I would take out the ceiling speakers and use a multimeter to check which cable does what do you can label them up correctly.
 
Example of how I think it is wired using a 4 core cable, vs the 2 core that i described as been the standard way. A cable is a cable, you could in theory tape them all together into 1 huge bundle :D

wiring.png


FYI - I used logic and to guess at which cable colour was used, but obviously you haven't a clue to which end goes into each speaker, (i.e. it could be (red+green, black+white) or (red+white, black+green) and you don't even know if the cable is plugged into the + or - side of the speaker), so would need to test each one to be sure. Personally, i would pop out the speaker from the ceiling, take a look and get the multi-meter on it (or ask the previous owner :) )
 
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What kind of A/V unit do I need to make this work and do I need to by front facing speakers or will the built in ceiling speakers do the job?
With the crazy cables, I completely missed your other question. Any AVR will do for the most part. Newer AVRs are quite expensive atm, but drop back a few models and there are bargains available. But which to get, depends on what you want to get out of it. Do you want 5.1 surround with 4 ceiling speakers i.e. 5.1.4. or do you want 3.1.4, 5.1.2, 7.1.4, 7.1.2 etc. Take a look at the dolby guides below to see what speaker setup you want. Personally i would get 5.1 as a minimum, but as you have ceiling speakers in place, 5.1.4 is good for you. The question then is which AVR, 5.1.4 needs 9 channels (5=4 = 9), which say 5.1.2 or 3.1.4 only needs 7 channels. Many budget AVRs cap out at 7 channels, like the denon x1700, x2700, but these are still limited to 2 ceiling speakers, so 5.1.2 is possible but not 3.1.4. If you want the 4 ceiling speakers you'll need something like denon x3600, x3700, x3800, x4600, x4700 etc. If you can set a budget for what you want, and what speakers you have available (if any) I can try to see what works.

Here is a pic of how my room is setup - Denon X3800H Owners Thread

First off, if you want good sound, your left, right, centre channels should be in front of you, not the ceiling. So personally, i would buy 3 speakers for the front to go around the TV. And use 2 in the ceiling above the TV for atmos (Top Front). (Leaving the 3rd speaker unused)

Now for the 4 speakers above the sofa. Honestly, not sure why they put in 4 speakers. You only need 2. I would wire up the 2 outer most speakers for atmos, and leave the inner two again unused. You could but i wouldn't recommend it, use the outer 2 for surround and the inner 2 for atmos (Top Rear). Surrounds, need to be at ear level, like the left/right speakers around the TV.

Personally i would get separate speakers for use as surrounds.



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