Setting up media closet

[lanky]

I have a media closet that houses my cable box,dvd player, and receiver. I'm trying to run 3 zones via the receiver. One zone is two speakers in living room thru a volume control, one is single speaker in bathroom thru volume control, and a bedroom with a plasma. I'm getting sound to the plasma via two extra coaxial cables thru the existing cat-5 because there is no speaker wire for the plasma just component. The problem is if I'm watching tv the sound plays thru the other two zones if the volume controls are not turned all the way down. Is there a way using my existing equipment(sony receiver str-de885) to watch tv while listening to music in the living room for example? Can the coaxial for the tv sound be run thru a different input or am I going to have to upgrade to a multizone receiver?

 

[MDS]

How are all these speakers wired to the receiver (if at all)?

I don't quite follow the 'two coax cables thru CAT5' thing for sound to/from the plasma because coax and cat5 are not related. Is the plasma connected to the receiver and the speakers to the receiver too?

If you used a two zone receiver you could wire the bathroom and bedroom speakers with volume controls to the zone 2 terminals and the main living room to the main zone speaker terminals. You'd be able to play separate sources in zone 1 (living room) and zone 2 (bath and bedroom) and shut off zone 2 completely. The bath and bedroom would play the same source and you'd have to shut off the volume control in one of those rooms if you didn't want to hear anything there when zone 2 is on at the receiver.

 

[lanky]

Media closet

Here is how it's currently connected:
component out from TV into video out(receiver)
two coaxial from TV into md/tape out(receiver)
cable box component into tv/sat in(receiver)
cable box audio into tv/sat in(receiver)
volume controls meet in closet connected together than into front speakers a(receiver)
I'm using the tv's speakers for sound, no external ones.

 

[Duffinator]

Is there a way using my existing equipment(sony receiver str-de885) to watch tv while listening to music in the living room for example? Can the coaxial for the tv sound be run thru a different input or am I going to have to upgrade to a multizone receiver?

I'm not completely following your setup but if your receiver is not multizone capable you will only be able to hear one source through your system. You will need a mulitzone capable receiver to distrubute different sources to different zones. Keep in mind that most mid-fi receivers will not distribute a digital input to other zones. A work around is to connect the analog input along with the digital input.

 

[lanky]

sorry for the confusion, in my original post I said cat-5, that is not correct, its just a component cable bundle with extra coxial ,telephone etc.