Onkyo 2 Zone & external amp

L

lpeepsou

Enthusiast
I am staring to design a system for a house I am building. I want to have 5.1 surround in the living room but also have speakers in the kitchen, 2 pairs on the deck and possibly a few extra pairs in the bedroom. I have an adcom 300 watt amp to use to power all the extra speakers. But I need a receiver to power the 5.1 setup. Have been looking at the Onkyo TX-NR708. I like it because is is networked (iphone remote and pandora!). Also looking at pioneer that has the iphone remote capabilities.

Looking to pair the receiver with a dual input speaker selector box and the adcom amp. This Onkyo model has dual zone capability which I am very high on. But digital sources won't play in zone 2 according to the owners manual.

So what if I want to play digital sources on the patio or bedrooms but have nothing on in the living room? I can't tell if there is a way to mute the 5.1 speakers but still play digital sources somehow.

Sorry for the long drawn out question.
 
M

markw

Audioholic Overlord
Many receivers won't, or at least wouldn't, play digitally sourced material through zones. You could play external analog sources and the tuner but as for anything that depends on the internal DAC, be careful.

You might want to investigate this further before jumping into the fire.
 
M Code

M Code

Audioholic General
If your digital sources has analog L/R outputs they will work fine with a conventional 7.1 AVR for Zone II audio output..

Just my $0.02... ;)
 
L

lpeepsou

Enthusiast
That's helpful about using the analog source. What I am wondering now is with the oykno receiver can you somehow mute the 5.1 speakers and still get sound through the preamp out jacks for the front 2 speakers? I was planning on using these preamp out jacks to feed my amp for the whole house audio.
 
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