The wife is at work and the son is napping, so tying up some loose ends here. I had a company come in this past October to hang my tv and install speakers (5.1). The front 2 speakers are bookshelf speakers, and the rear 2 speakers are in the ceiling. Unfortunately they never got a chance to finish the setup as the new receiver I had was a dud. Up to this point this receiver does not work, I have a complaint into BBB, and possibly a lawsuit to follow (not the same company as the installation company), but anyway....I bought a new receiver a few weeks ago as a replacement. I called the installation company to finish the setup, took off a day from work after making an appt, only to have them stand me up. I refuse to give them a 2nd chance and was hoping to finish the setup myself. I am stuck in one area though that hopefully someone here may have some insight into. I already have the front/center/subwoofer hooked up and working, but don't know how to connect the rear speakers. Here is the issue, I was expecting a separate line for the rear right and rear left speaker. From looking though it appears that there is only one line that was run for both. If you look at the picture below there are actually 2 groups of wires that have not been connected. The group out in front (with the green stripe) I have no clue what this is for. The group behind (with the blue stripe) is for the rear speakers. So how do I know the ones with the blue stripe are for the rears - a) the company actually wrote "rears" on this and b) there is a small hole in my ceiling by the rear speakers where the wire was run. I can confirm that there is only one speaker run and it has a blue line. For the front and center speakers each one has its own wire run, with the black/green connecting to the "-" on the receiver and the red/white connecting to the "+". For the rears I am assuming that the wiring is different, where the black represents the "-" for one speaker, the green for the other speaker, and the same goes for the red and white. I have no idea though what is what. So here is my question from this long winded post, I am thinking about testing out different combinations for the rear speakers into the receiver, I figure there can only be four types of combinations (Red/Black Left White/Green Right, Red/Green Right White/Black Left,Red/Green Left White/Black Right,Red/Black Right White/Green Left). Is there any potential that I could damage the speakers or receiver if I get it wrong (of course the "+" and "-" will go in the right place, just talking about the combination)? I guess I should just suck it up and call the installation company, have them explain to me over the phone what they did, and also explain what that rouge wire is for...

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Damian

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It doesn't matter what color you use as long as you wire them up at both ends the same way.

If you use the black(-) on the speaker (-) on the right then do the same at the reciever.
Use the white(+) on the speaker(+) on the right then do the same at the reciever.

then use the red(+) on the speaker(+) on the left and do the same at the reciever.
use the green(-) on the speaker(-) on the left and do the same at the reciever.

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The problem though is I have no idea what ends/colors are connected to the speakers. The speakers are already installed in the ceiling, so I cannot tell what colors are connected to what speakers. Not sure if I could somehow pull out the speakers to see this.

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Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

If your speakers are passive instead of active. Meaning they don't have a power supply connected to them, then there shouldn't be a problem if you connect them wrong. just try a speaker on the output of you amp, keep the volume low to make sure you have sound at the source, then test with the wires.

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HP MediaSmart EX495 E8600 3.2Ghz CPU, 4GB ram, 8TB storage including 3TB drives in pool. WHS with Active Directory, WDS, Media Center Master, Logitech server. Office 2010 server with client add-ins.
Microsoft MVP - Windows Home Server.

Yeah, worst case scenario you get the phase wrong, but that can often be detected by the receiver setup utility (if it has one, many modern ones do).

Is there a chance they ran the green wire for a future 7.1 setup?

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Alex Kuretz
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D,
The speaker grill covers should pop off and the speaker & housing are typically held to the wall with a swing-out arm that gets tightened.(check manufacturer's web site)
Once removed from ceiling you can verify the wiring.

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Sean
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Thanks everyone for your comments. This is my first speaker/receiver setup so still learning the ropes. I didn't get a chance to work on this last night as I decided to brick my desktop PC instead!!! I was thinking as well that maybe the extra wire was for future 7.1, it was a little odd that they didn't label that wire like all the others. Oh well, I have off this Friday so hopefully I can get this working.

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Just pull the speakers from the ceiling or go up into the attic and look at which wire is connected to each. It looks like each cable contains 4 wires, so 2 wires for each speaker and an extra cable for more speakers in the future, or just use the same colored wires (red & black) from each cable to wire the speakers the same.

OK, just to put some closure to this thread I started. If you recall I had mentioned there was a spare wire left unlabeled from when the installation company set up everything. Well, I was playing around with the setup yesterday and I noticed that I was getting sound through all my speakers except for the center channel, couldn't figure out what the flip was going on. After almost giving up I decided to try something drastic. I unplugged the wires labeled "center" from the receiver and replaced with the unlabeled wires. Low and behold, I was now getting sound out of the center channel. So......aside from leaving me with a random set of wires, the installation company mislabeled as well, the unmarked wires were for the Center channel and the wires labeled "Center" were for, ummm, no clue. Oh well, all speakers are now finally working, this just further re enforces my thoughts that I should have taken on this project myself and not paid someone to do it...

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin