So we just moved into a new home, and I was thrilled to see it had 4 rooms with ceiling speakers...

It wasn't until we moved in that I started seeing how it was unusual.

The 4 zones in question return to the network panel in the basement. Not as speaker wire, but cat5 lines connected to This thing .

I would provide a better link but I can't find much about it online.

I'm having a real hard time understanding how the hell I'm supposed to drive speakers with ~23 gauge wires. Am I missing something? My next step will be to pull out the volume control in one of the rooms, and also pull a speaker to see how it's wired. I just haven't had a chance to do much lately.

My daughter bought an apartment with a similar setup it was crap so in the end I just used the speakers and connected up locally in each room to these (can't remember the exact make/model but many options):

https://audioinstallations.co.uk/powerli...ASABEgJQYvD_BwE

Ugh. I figured as much. I’m going to attempt to hook up an input to it when I have time, and turn the volume off on all but one zone to give it the best chance of working. I’m…not hopeful…

Ok…so I hooked everything up last night and…it’s…I’m not sure exactly how to feel. Perhaps I’m talking myself into thinking it’s ok. It’s definitely NOT GREAT, but for background music…it’s probably fine. It certainly seems designed with the sole goal of “background music during a cocktail party,” and it’ll work decently for that.

I might try to play around with it when I have a little more time. Considering it was installed in 2003 with the technology of the day (my house was built 2 years before the first Sonos product), I might eventually see what I can do to retrofit.

For example, this hilariously doesn’t even use 2 of the wires. It seems to use one pair to power the wall control, two pairs for the positive and negative on each speaker, and then leaves the 4th pair unused (I think it might be used for IR receivers on some wall control models).

I have to assume that I’d at least get better results by removing the wall controls entirely, and using each pair together for the positive and negative lines on each speaker.

Also, the system is currently set up so that the only possible input is from a pair of RCA jacks on a wall plate in the family room. So this analog signal has to travel all the way down to the basement and then back out to the speakers. The controller its self is powered so that’s assisting the signal, but this is all just so hilarious to me.

Eventually - once I’ve recovered from the general expense of moving - I’ll probably put a Sonos Amp in the basement, and wire up the 4 pairs as I mentioned to a speaker selector. Obviously this isn’t ideal, but it’s better than tearing out all the wires in the house I guess!

One thing I didn’t do yesterday was take out the volume knob on the wall. I’ll be very curious to see what kind of wire they used between that and the actual speakers. I’m assuming it’s still Cat5. If I was made of money I would probably find a way to wire up a Sonos Amp in every room with speakers, to minimize the wire run.

My bet is that your complaint is most likely due to the speakers rather than the wire runs.

So long as the audio is balanced/differential on twisted pairs (preferably STP), and the cables have been routed sufficiently far from the nearest mains cables, this actually doesn't sound like it was a terrible idea. Power-over-Ethernet (which this pre-dates) can drive 25W DC over Cat5, so this probably does similar. It's certainly theoretically possible to make a decent audio output from 25W DC and a balanced audio input, though as Tony says it depends greatly on how good their wall-unit amps and their speakers are.

Peter