QuestionI own a recently-constructed townhome pre-wired for surround sound. I would like to install a wall-mount AM/FM Radio with CD capability.
I find 4 capped accesses (looks like an outlet but with one wire only) at about the 8-foot level which I assume are for speakers. There is one capped access about a foot off the floor (one wire), which a helpful person at Circuit City told me was for a sub-woofer, which I likely don't need for such a small installation. Lastly, there is a capped access on the TV shelf containing 4 wires and a TV cable, which I assume I would not need since this is an audio-only install.
I think I need to buy 4 speakers and an AM/FM wall-mount radio with CD capable of hooking into Surround Sound.
It looks like a job I could do myself but I have a few questions:
1) Do speakers I would buy over the internet generally hook up to just a single wire? Or do I have to specify a certain type of speaker?
2) Do I have to specify Surround Sound when purchasing the AM/FM radio?
3) Would the radio come with instructions as to how to hook in the wires or do I need to hunt that info up on my own? Incidentally, the 4 wires are all white, not color-coded.
Any info you could provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You.
AnswerHi Allen,
The first thing you should realize is that radio is actually mono, not even stereo, so there's no such thing as a "Surround Sound AM/FM Radio" that isn't just ripping you off. You can't make Surround Sound out of a mono signal. And CDs are stereo, and that's all, so again, you won't be getting any Surround Sound out of them, and buying a system that says it plays CDs in Surround Sound doesn't really mean anything. Stereo is stereo is stereo - Surround sound requires at least one of the following: Dolby Logic Pro encoding, which gives you 4 separate channels; or one of the Dolby Surround Sound systems, such as the Dolby 5.1 used on some DVDs for audio.
You don't mention at all what the plugs in the capped access boxes look like, so there's no way to be able to guess what kind of plugs you would need, but since you're really trying to get something that you can't, it's moot to this answer.
If you want to hook up four speakers to listen to mono radio, that's your choice, of course. All you need to do is figure out if the access plugs require wires or use plugs, such as the common "RCA plug" that most audio equipment uses, and simply buy any player that provides that, and "Satellite Speakers", as they're known as, to hang from the walls. Those speakers will either need to provide wires or RCA plugs, although you can always convert them: cut the RCA plug off and you have two wires you can use, and if you have wired speakers, it's easy to solder on some RCA plugs you can pick up at any electronics store.
All that said, if you're just listening to radio and CDs, I would skip the whole Surround Sound setup and just buy a player with two speakers and be done with it. Surround Sound is really only for home theater and playing movies, so unless you want to spend a lot of time and money on something that actually won't do anything, that's your choice, of course, but personally I think unless you decide to install a Home Theater setup, you should just forget about the access plugs and worry about buying a decent stereo system. Good luck! Cheers, Wink
