Can I bypass in wall volume control?

  • 24 September 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 2479 views

I just bought a house with an existing ceiling speaker system that has in wall volume controls. The previous owner upgraded everything to Sonos controls in the server room. My questions is cant I somehow bypass the wall controls. I dont like having speaker controls on the walls. We use our phones or ipad to control everything. Thanks.

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4 replies

Well, you could leave the controls at 100 % all the time, if you wanted. Or you could pull the controls out of the wall, and connect the lines together (solder, cable nut, twist and electrical tape, your choice) in series, stuff them back in the wall, and "fix' the drywall. If you do that, make sure to both check to be sure that you're not switching wires when you connect them, and that you're not breaking building codes by drywalling over electrical connections (check with your local electrician).

I'm assuming that "Sonos controls" in the server room means that they installed CONNECT:AMPs that are controlled by the app.
Make sure that each speaker has its own private pair of wires in the server room (each control is a "home run" to the amplifier), then you could bypass the controls.

I don't recommend using wire nuts or "twist and tape" for joining speaker wires -- especially in a spot that will become inaccessible after the walls are patched. Make absolutely sure that the system works as expected before finishing the patches.
I suppose it depends on how you feel about how it looks, but I personally wouldn't patch up the wall after removing the volume control. I would just cover it with a blank faceplate. Perhaps your skills with drywall patching are good, but I've never liked trying to match the texture of the wall and all that. As well, if you ever sell the home, you may want to put the volume controls back in as a selling point for the home.

Then again, if I had blank faceplates throughout the house, I can see where that would get rather annoying.
Cover the blanks or controls with decals or pictures.Task the kids with this.