Receiver / Home Theater Help Needed

Nachoman91 Bronze Member Username: Nachoman91 Cincinnati, OH USA Post Number: 28 Registered: Dec-04	Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 14:43 GMT I have 8 rooms all with speakers and volume controllers as well as a main living room with HDTV and a 6 speaker stereo system. I now need to pick out a receiver to put it all together. I'd like to be able to have my home theater system going and also be able to play music from the radio or CD in the other rooms at the same time. I assume I'll need a receiver and speaker selector so if that is right I have 2 questions. 1. What receiver is the best to accomplish this at a reasonable price? 2. Will I need an amplifier to run everything at once or will the receiver be able to power everything? Sorry if this seems like a novice/stupid question. I went to Best Buy and Circuit City and the sales people had me ranging from a $400 to a $2000 system based on who you talk to.
Chris Laudermilk Silver Member Username: Claudermilk CA USA Post Number: 447 Registered: Sep-04	Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 15:25 GMT I'm only just starting to look at a similar thing and basically what you are after is a receiver with zone B or 2nd zone speakers. I prefer Marantz from my experience with my current SR5400, and for the 2nd zone capability you're looking at the SR4001 and up (MSRP $549). I'll leave the amplifier question to the experts (and learn something myself ).
Nachoman91 Bronze Member Username: Nachoman91 Cincinnati, OH USA Post Number: 31 Registered: Dec-04	Posted on Monday, March 26, 2007 - 19:39 GMT anyone?
Jim Bob Jones Bronze Member Username: Alright_boy Post Number: 74 Registered: Jan-07	Posted on Monday, March 26, 2007 - 21:01 GMT Too many variables and insufficient information to definitively answer these questions. Maybe that explains why you have not received any bites.
Frank Abela Gold Member Username: Frank_abela Berkshire UK Post Number: 1971 Registered: Sep-04	Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 11:27 GMT I'm not sure that what you want to do is possible at this time. The closest I can come up with would be the Sonos system which is a network of transmitters/receivers (called ZonePlayers) which allow you to have up to 6 sources playing in up 32 zones at the same time. A zone can contain one or more units (so you can link rooms together and control them as a single zone - great for house parties). I think there may be a problem when connecting the actual sources and where they're plugged in. You can connect one source directly to any one ZonePlayer and that source can be routed round the network (the ZonePlayer does the Analogue to Digital conversion). What you can't do is connect all your sources to the AV amp and expect the AV amp to route all of them across the house independantly. Also, the Sonos handles audio only, no video. To do that too needs a more sophisticated and expensive system such as Crestron. You'd have to connect them to Sonos ZonePlayers and then have an extra ZonePlayer as an input on the AV amp if you want to route them as sources to that area. It'll work but it's not completely clear to me at this point how to do it. Have a look at the Sonos website for more details: http://www.sonos.com Regards, Frank.
Frank Abela Gold Member Username: Frank_abela Berkshire UK Post Number: 1972 Registered: Sep-04	Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 11:30 GMT OOPS, that last paragraph isn't right - it should have read like this: I think there may be a problem when connecting the actual sources and where they're plugged in. You can connect one source directly to any one ZonePlayer and that source can be routed round the network (the ZonePlayer does the Analogue to Digital conversion). What you can't do is connect all your sources to the AV amp and expect the AV amp to route all of them across the house independantly. You'd have to connect them to Sonos ZonePlayers and then have an extra ZonePlayer as an input on the AV amp if you want to route them as sources to that area. It'll work but it's not completely clear to me at this point how to do it. Have a look at the Sonos website for more details: http://www.sonos.com. Also, the Sonos handles audio only, no video. To do that too needs a more sophisticated and expensive system such as Crestron. These systems are in the tens of thousands in cost typically. Regards, frankl.
Nachoman91 Bronze Member Username: Nachoman91 Cincinnati, OH USA Post Number: 32 Registered: Dec-04	Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 19:58 GMT Maybe I'm wrong and feel free to lambast if I am but I'm not sure why this is so difficult to understand. Any two zone receiver can accomplish what I want, I was just wondering which one was the best for the money as well as if I will need additional power ... i.e. amplifier.
Kano Gold Member Username: Kano BC Canada Post Number: 1156 Registered: Oct-04	Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 00:48 GMT If you want all 8 rooms to play the same thing you can accomplish your goal with a 7.1 receiver and a power amplifier for the 8 rooms. However in this set-up you may have to lose the 6th channel in your home theatre set-up. You use the surround back channel pre-outs of the receiver into a splitter then connect to a power amplifier capable of powering 8 rooms. So you need a 7.1 receiver with an 8 channel pre-out section.
Frank Abela Gold Member Username: Frank_abela Berkshire UK Post Number: 1981 Registered: Sep-04	Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 14:01 GMT Nachoman Most receivers have only one zone they can serve. Some have the ability to play two zones, but often not a different source for the second zone. In your original post you said you had 8 rooms and wanted to be able to play different sources in the rooms at the same time. No receiver can do this currently. For this, you need music distribution, which is what the Sonos is about, or if you wanted video as well, you need media distribution, which is what Crestron (and money) are about. With an ordinary receiver, the best you can get is one source in the main zone (5 channels of amplification) and another source in the 2nd zone (and even that's restricted to a few models only I believe). Regards, Frank.
Nachoman91 Bronze Member Username: Nachoman91 Cincinnati, OH USA Post Number: 33 Registered: Dec-04	Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 14:33 GMT Thanks for the help Frank. I originally was going to settle for just having 2 zones but now that I've seen Sonos I will probably go in that direction.

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