This question got no attention on the Receiver bb. Can anyone here help?
I am thinking about getting a surround sound receiver in the future. Many of these receivers have a preamplified second zone and I think I will get one of them when I make the purchase. I have the opportunity to wire for the second zone now, so I need advice. I would prefer to put the second zone amplifier in the second zone about 20 feet from the receiver. Is this possible/acceptable? What kind of connection is needed for a preamplified signal at 20 feet? I think what I am asking is what gauge and form of interconnects are used for 20 foot preamplified connections? I have seen the heated discussions about speaker wire. Are the issues the same? Do I need to use heavier gauge interconnects because of the distance?
I'm a little confused. What do you plan in playing on the second zone. I have a Yamaha 3300 receiver with a zone 2 output that can drive a second set of speakers from an independent source in a second room. In this case you'd need nothing more than speaker wire. On the other hand if you're looking at a video source then you probably have two methods. Either way the video source will be sent over by some video cable, whether composite or S-video or possibly component video. The audio can be sent over one of two ways. Either via speaker wire as mentioned above for the audio only method, or by RCA jacks if the low level signal is sent to a separate amplifier. Mine doesn't have this option, but some models may allow you to send over a digital audio signal so that you can send it to a DTS/Dolby decoder to get that feature. Also, keep in mind that you may want to hook up an infrared transmitter and receiver so that you can control the A/V receiver in the first room.
This is kind of confusing, and it's difficult to answer because I'm sure different receivers have different connection methods. My suggestion is go to a good high end A/V store and ask them.