Whole House Audio

When we built the new house I pre-wired several rooms for audio. All of the speaker wires were installed in the walls prior to drywall. I installed ceiling speakers in the dining room, kitchen and living room. The living room ceiling speakers are at the back of the seating area and I use them for the rear surround speakers (see photo below). I also ran a pair of speaker wires to the deck outside and another set to the basement.

All of the speaker wires run back to the living room behind the entertainment center. I installed a large junction box in the wall and purchased a connection plate similar to the one in the photo. The plate allows me an organized way to connect the audio signals to the wall and then have it delivered to the appropriate speakers.

By pre-wiring the house for audio we are able to supply music to all of the areas that we typically hang out at during parties. There’s no need to run wires along floors or tucked under carpets.

Just today I realized there was one thing I hadn’t thought about. I was reading another blog and the guy was complaining that it’s very difficult to set the volume on deck speakers when you run them from inside the house! Good point…I may need to install some type of speaker volume control out there when I finally purchase speakers for the deck.

You can buy almost any type of speaker and audio connections to do built-in applications. A quick search online will give you multiple sources of these type of products. The best thing to do is draw out all of your audio sources and speakers so you can order all the components. We’ve certainly been very happy with the built in audio features of our new home. The only thing I didn’t run which I really wish I had was a satellite radio antenna wire from the attic to the entertainment center.

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