Audio Systems: Bose Outdoor/Indoor Speakers, klipsch speakers, center channel speaker

Question
We recently purchased a home that had Bose cubes in the family room (front and rear), as well as 2 outdoor speakers under soffits and 2 speakers around the pool (they are green and are dome-like).  All of the speakers worked before we moved into the home.

The seller had a Bose system which ran all of the speakers through a Bose receiver/media system.  There is also what appears to be a central hook-up station in the basement.  

I have an Onkyo receiver, Kilpsch subwoofer and Klipsch center channel speaker (the Klipsch speakers are over 10 years old, the Onkyo receiver about 4-5 years old).  I was able to get the family room front and rear Bose speakers hooked up to my Onkyo receiver and working (along with the Klipsch center channel speaker), but can't get any of the outdoor speakers working.  I believe that all of the speaker wires coming out of the wall have been hooked up to the receiver except one.

I have no idea where to start to get the outdoor speakers working.  Before I hire a home entertainment company to come in and help, I thought I'd try to see if anyone could give me some advice.

Thanks in advance for any help that anyone can provide.

Answer
First of all, you need to check the exposed wires, and see if the outdoor speakers are hooked up to them. you can just connect them to any speaker output on your receiver to test this (only have one pair at a time in any given speaker output connection).

You do have me a bit confused, how many speaker wire pairs are coming out of the wall in total? According to your speaker count, there should be 8 pairs of wires (8 speakers). By hooking up the Bose fronts and rears, that takes away 4 pairs - you should have 4 - but you're saying there's only one.


After that, what you'll probably need is another small amplifier that you would connect the speakers to. Hopefully, your Onkyo has some sort of "Pre - out". that you'd run RCA cables to the amp.

I know this may be a bit confusing, but it's difficult to troubleshoot something like this in a forum like this. The first thing you need to do is verify which wires go to the outdoor speakers. Write me back when you do this, and I can walk you through the next steps.