I bought my house two years ago and have intermittently have tried messing around with these multi room speaker system and have been continuously unsuccessful.

House was built in 2003 and I believe the system is probably original to the house based on everything. I don't know if somebody has some resources available or anybody in the Colleyville/Grapevine area that maybe could help out.

I would like to to work. The previous owner died a short while ago so can't ask him anymore.

That's obviously pretty old stuff, but assuming you don't want to replace it, what's not working? Does it power up? Have you looked at those manuals to figure out how the components fit together? If it were me, I'd take it all apart and add one component at a time so I could pinpoint the problem.

Once you get it working, sketch out how it works so you won't have to figure it out again in five years.

Also, before you take it all apart or have anyone come out, I would figure out what you want to do with it? Are you looking to just play radio/cds all over the house? How many rooms does it cover? Do you want to just stream something from the internet (ala Spotify)? Do you want it to have the ability to run separately in every room it's in? Do you want it to connect to a video stream? Etc...

I've found the hard way, when starting a new home tech project there is a chance to fall down a rabbit hole hard and spend a ton of money because of "shiny things", and whole home audio is one of those areas that can spiral quickly. So figure out what you would want this to do, basic or advanced, so that you have an idea of what the best case scenario outcome is whenever you or someone looks into what you need to do.

So everything turns on and seems to work but I can't get audio out to the speakers in the house. There's a switchboard type thing that seems to control which rooms gets the inputs.

It's probably 8 rooms. I'm fine just with it playing CDs or just an audio output from my phone.

I've gone upstairs and looked in the attic and everything seems wired correctly.

I've spent a couple of hours on it but I just can't seem to make any headway.

I'm a little hesitant to just take it all out although I'm headed that direction.

I didn't know if there were some old school audiophiles in my neighborhood though that maybe could guide me.


Appreciate all the responses.

Before doing anything else, you might wan to get something to test the speaker wires and make sure their still good. Maybe get a wire tracer to verify what speakers are going where? Apparently the one I have isn't sold anymore but here are a couple Kein Tools


Just a tester
https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-VDV500-705-Generator-Alligator/dp/B084LKVBM5/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3MUZC0SUN9QYI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CZDPNJmTlPoHFPZSpBpx5LPdZHgZy2l8S3LpfTUFwYqOnkhgh8w5qlnpvWO16RVEsMhJ0su8eQdcc2VaFKZRz4CxrgU0tMHoftIieZP6ikFYh-DcsfP-MsJ3-Tg2ikQw79M80GWE4vyay3Q4mvhLBZ1obIKVXEG1QwbPtv1lA-6FPhDT9421kMDcmmDWDGGriup-M-y5f52Jo8aQupOmjul22adLK0auyCGq3Gx0NhI.lriVEILQKWp0FBH6RLDKPnLYx_14fASbhmLFs0NzDAY&dib_tag=se&keywords=sperry%2Bwire%2Btracker&qid=1738535844&sprefix=sperry%2Bwire%2Btracker%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-3&th=1

Tester with a Continuity testing
https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-Tone-Probe-PRO/dp/B07VYN98QV/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3MUZC0SUN9QYI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CZDPNJmTlPoHFPZSpBpx5LPdZHgZy2l8S3LpfTUFwYqOnkhgh8w5qlnpvWO16RVEsMhJ0su8eQdcc2VaFKZRz4CxrgU0tMHoftIieZP6ikFYh-DcsfP-MsJ3-Tg2ikQw79M80GWE4vyay3Q4mvhLBZ1obIKVXEG1QwbPtv1lA-6FPhDT9421kMDcmmDWDGGriup-M-y5f52Jo8aQupOmjul22adLK0auyCGq3Gx0NhI.lriVEILQKWp0FBH6RLDKPnLYx_14fASbhmLFs0NzDAY&dib_tag=se&keywords=sperry%2Bwire%2Btracker&qid=1738535844&sprefix=sperry%2Bwire%2Btracker%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-4&th=1

send me an email before you buy anything I can get you a deal.

How many speakers do you have in each room/how many individual zones? If most just have a left/right, something like the DAX88 may work. I just installed one in my house as we were remodeling and love it.

https://www.amazon.com/Dayton-Audio-8-Source-Distributed-Amplifier/dp/B09F7WYJSB/ref=asc_df_B09F7WYJSB?mcid=4c6eab5448e434bc9a211639aea3c001&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693363874255&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2667224703502320938&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9198653&hvtargid=pla-1430127664761&psc=1


ETA...this may be exactly what you're looking for.

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

---

So everything turns on and seems to work but I can't get audio out to the speakers in the house.

---

Duh, turn the volume up.

:-)

On a serious note, that smells like a blown amp somewhere.

wcb said:

---

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

---

So everything turns on and seems to work but I can't get audio out to the speakers in the house.

---

Duh, turn the volume up.

:-)

On a serious note, that smells like a blown amp somewhere.

---

So interestingly enough the onkyo brand receiver has a known issue with one of the chips coming loose so it turns on but doesn't produce sound. I went ahead and tried just the head phone jack and got no sound out so I'm betting that's what it is. I would like to really prove it though so will probably just buy a speaker tester and see if the switchboard works. If it does, then I'll probably just buy a new receiver

IrishAg said:

---

Before doing anything else, you might wan to get something to test the speaker wires and make sure their still good. Maybe get a wire tracer to verify what speakers are going where? Apparently the one I have isn't sold anymore but here are a couple Kein Tools


Just a tester
https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-VDV500-705-Generator-Alligator/dp/B084LKVBM5/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3MUZC0SUN9QYI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CZDPNJmTlPoHFPZSpBpx5LPdZHgZy2l8S3LpfTUFwYqOnkhgh8w5qlnpvWO16RVEsMhJ0su8eQdcc2VaFKZRz4CxrgU0tMHoftIieZP6ikFYh-DcsfP-MsJ3-Tg2ikQw79M80GWE4vyay3Q4mvhLBZ1obIKVXEG1QwbPtv1lA-6FPhDT9421kMDcmmDWDGGriup-M-y5f52Jo8aQupOmjul22adLK0auyCGq3Gx0NhI.lriVEILQKWp0FBH6RLDKPnLYx_14fASbhmLFs0NzDAY&dib_tag=se&keywords=sperry%2Bwire%2Btracker&qid=1738535844&sprefix=sperry%2Bwire%2Btracker%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-3&th=1

Tester with a Continuity testing
https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-Tone-Probe-PRO/dp/B07VYN98QV/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3MUZC0SUN9QYI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CZDPNJmTlPoHFPZSpBpx5LPdZHgZy2l8S3LpfTUFwYqOnkhgh8w5qlnpvWO16RVEsMhJ0su8eQdcc2VaFKZRz4CxrgU0tMHoftIieZP6ikFYh-DcsfP-MsJ3-Tg2ikQw79M80GWE4vyay3Q4mvhLBZ1obIKVXEG1QwbPtv1lA-6FPhDT9421kMDcmmDWDGGriup-M-y5f52Jo8aQupOmjul22adLK0auyCGq3Gx0NhI.lriVEILQKWp0FBH6RLDKPnLYx_14fASbhmLFs0NzDAY&dib_tag=se&keywords=sperry%2Bwire%2Btracker&qid=1738535844&sprefix=sperry%2Bwire%2Btracker%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-4&th=1

---

This helped me isolate the problem. Thank you. Definitely the amp/receiver.

ETA:

So the receiver goes into a 10 speaker relay. So I don't need a multiple channel receiver correct? Just one with enough juice to power the 20 speakers connected to the relay if I want them all on at the some time?

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

---

So everything turns on and seems to work but I can't get audio out to the speakers in the house. There's a switchboard type thing that seems to control which rooms gets the inputs.

It's probably 8 rooms. I'm fine just with it playing CDs or just an audio output from my phone.

I've gone upstairs and looked in the attic and everything seems wired correctly.

I've spent a couple of hours on it but I just can't seem to make any headway.

I'm a little hesitant to just take it all out although I'm headed that direction.

I didn't know if there were some old school audiophiles in my neighborhood though that maybe could guide me.


Appreciate all the responses.

---

We just bought a house in colleyville that has a similar setup that I will have to figure out once we get moved in.

TexasAggie_97 said:

---

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

---

So everything turns on and seems to work but I can't get audio out to the speakers in the house. There's a switchboard type thing that seems to control which rooms gets the inputs.

It's probably 8 rooms. I'm fine just with it playing CDs or just an audio output from my phone.

I've gone upstairs and looked in the attic and everything seems wired correctly.

I've spent a couple of hours on it but I just can't seem to make any headway.

I'm a little hesitant to just take it all out although I'm headed that direction.

I didn't know if there were some old school audiophiles in my neighborhood though that maybe could guide me.


Appreciate all the responses.

---

We just bought a house in colleyville that has a similar setup that I will have to figure out once we get moved in.

---

Feel free to PM me or email at imahillbillyhick at gmail. Happy to lend my speaker tester and a multimeter if you need it.