Stereo Dilemma

When we moved into our house one of the first things we did was to set up the stereo system. We found a spot in the foyer next to the living room for the equipment cabinet, drilled a hole in the floor and then ran the speaker wires down to the basement. One set of speakers went in the living room on either side of the television and across from the couch. The second set of speakers were installed in the kitchen on top of the cupboards. The speaker wires were run from the receiver, down the hole in the floor, along the basement rafters, through another couple of sets of holes in the floor and then connected to their speakers. The kitchen ones were particularly tricky coming up behind the cupboards but everything worked fine.

Eventually we decided to move the turntable up to the third floor were the records were stored. We really didn't have a place to keep lots of records downstairs. I put a connected laptop on the stereo shelf and we used it to play music from the iTunes and then later from online streaming services. Currently we use Spotify. 

Several years ago we added a stereo surround sound receiver to the new television we had recently put in the living room. Dave came over and helped us install a surround sound speaker system which included two additional speakers in the room. One was a bass speaker. Both were installed on either side of the couch and more holes needed to be drilled in the floor. There were different settings to get the surround sound to work and over the years we stopped using those functions. 

I also didn't like losing the easy function of the A and B speakers on the stereo system for controlling which room had the music playing. With the new system if we wanted to have music in the living room then it was necessary to change the TV system settings to aux for the speakers to play from the stereo system and then the volume needed to be significantly adjusted. The TV also needed to be on during this process. 

So I recently attempted to make adjustments to the system and disable the extra speakers for the TV and go back to the original setup where it was easy to go back and forth between room speakers. There have been many times recently that I wanted to turn off the TV and play the music on the stereo in all the rooms. And do it quickly.

I pulled the stereo cabinet away from the wall to get at the wiring in the back and I did the same to the receiver on the TV cart. I disconnected the two older speakers from the TV and made sure the other speakers from the TV were still connected. I was not looking forward to going down to the basement and restringing the speaker wires from the TV receiver back to the regular stereo system receiver. However, before I could do that I tested the TV for sound and I was unable to get any sound from the TV. Not from the built-in speaker, not the center speaker and not the other two surround sound speakers. It was like disconnecting the two main speakers ruined everything. I spent about an hour messing with the system trying to get it to work the way I wanted it. 

I finally reattached everything the way it had been and fortunately everything worked again as it did earlier in the day but I was frustrated and angry. But I was glad I didn't need to go down to the basement and mess with all those speaker wires again. 

So I had a stereo dilemma and I started thinking about alternatives. I came up with a new plan that included getting some bluetooth speakers which run around $40 each. I would pair them from a laptop that could play iTunes, stream online services like Spotify or play mixes from a flash drive which I had been making for use in the car. I was even considering bringing the turntable back downstairs. There are also bluetooth receiver devices that can connect to an old home stereo system and send the music to a paired bluetooth speaker. 

Many people today have no speaker wires whatsoever in their homes and that looks like where I am finally heading.