Hey guys,

I don't know very much how to setup this system that this house has that me and my friends are renting right now. The problem is I don't know much about stero system setups and need help with what kind of reciever we need.

Theres two big ass speakers in the front, left and right on ground level. Then theres two speakers in the front hanging from the wall that are on the left and right sides. Theres two speakers in the back hanging from the wall as well, left and right, and then theres a Sub. So from my guess is that this is a 6.1 system. But theres also two speakers outside which we want to hook up too. I have no idea what kind of receiver we need to get.

So basically theres 8 speakers and 1 sub. I guess we would want the outside speakers to get the sound from the front channels I have no clue about Wattages and ohms. Any help to kind of push me into the right direction?

Heres a crappy ass diagram if it would help.

 

ideally, you'd get a reciever with multiple zone support, for your outside and inside listening

why do you have 4 speakers in the front?

for 5.1 you want: (2) front, (2) surrounds, (1) center channel

for 6.1 you want: (2) front, (2) surrounds, (1) back surround, (1) center channel

I'd suggest you either remove the front spearkers on the wall, or dont use the big front speakers. Also I'd suggest getting a center channel sound speaker, or using one of the big-ass speakers as the center

 

The owner of the house lived here before and the speakers are put into a custom built shelf, and so he just left everything the way it was when we moved in. No idea why he decided to have 4 front speakers. The two big speakers are on the floor and the other 2 front smaller speakers are mounted like, say maybe 6-7 ft above ground. And we can't really remove the speakers off the wall because the wires come out of the wall and I guess we don't want to tamper with it since we're only renting.

Sounds understandable what you said with the 5.1 and 6.1 system. We're just trying to work with what we got, and we really only want to use the system for music really, not for regular TV and stuff, although it would be nice.

Now I have some ideas about what would be okay for us such as . . .
- Is it possible to hook all the speakers to a receiver and set modes so only certain speakers come on? Such as say, when we're watching TV, can we switch to a mode that will only enable the front two big speakers and the 2 in the rear (I think those are the surround speakers you speak off)? and have another mode for music which enables all the speakers?

Also I've browsing receivers online and I noticed that receivers have for inputs round sockets, but the speaker wires we have are those pair of wires that need to be clamped in. Will this be a problem with newer receivers?

Thanks for helping out.

 

Oh and I just found the front center speaker, was hidden in the a drawer and not connected. So I guess we have 7 indoor speakers and 2 outdoor speakers.

Also the two big speakers in front are 3-way speaker systems, if that means anything . Doesn't mean anything to me.

Do receivers even have this many inputs? Sounds like one too many speakers too me.

 

The extra left and right speakers sound like presence speakers. My Yamaha receiver supports them. I guess they're supposed to add depth to sound effects and if the center speaker is mounted BELOW the TV, they can help make it sound like the dialog is coming from the center of the screen.

It looks like you have two rear speakers indoors so that'll handle 5.1. The two outdoor speakers can be hookup up to a 2nd zone in the receiver which could otherwise be used to drive 4 rear speakers for 7.1.