Zone 2 on Yamaha TSR 7850 is on when says “off” and vice versa

[Bryfish]

I cannot figure how to align my Zone 2 (patio speakers) being on when it states such. By that I mean the only way to turn on Zone 2 is by turning it “off” on the receiver, remote or app. This may also be why I am unable to adjust the volume of Zone 2 independently of the main zone. Thanks in advance.

 

[Trebdp83]

How many speakers in main zone? Speaker configuration?

 

[Bryfish]

Thanks for your response. I have center, 2 sides, sub and 2 surround.

 

[Trebdp83]

So 5.1 in main zone? Are the zone 2 speakers connected to the EXTRA SP1 or EXTRA SP2 terminals?

 

[Bryfish]

EXTRA SP1. Thanks.

 

[Trebdp83]

Ok. So, speakers should be configured as 7.1 + Zone 2 if Zone 2 speakers are connected to EXTRA SP1. Are you using the slider on the remote control to switch control from the Main Zone to Zone 2.? There are limitations to playing some sources exclusively in Zone 2.

 

[Bryfish]

You, sir are a HERO!!! Going from 5.1 to 7.1 did it! I’ll never get the last 4 years of frustration back, but going forward! Thank you so much!

 

[Trebdp83]

Joy! But, looking at it, I may have crossed some numbers there and Zone 2 speakers on EXTRA SP 1 should have had setup as 5.1.2 + Zone 2. But, if it works, I'd hate to mess it up.

 

[Bryfish]

That's hilarious! Hopefully, I'll soon forget that it's set up wrong and now works right. Do you own this model? Thank you again.

 

[Trebdp83]

My RX-V6A has what looks like identical settings for adding Zone 2. It can be confusing if one has a 5.1 setup in the main room and wants to use Zone 2 speakers somewhere. There isn't really a setting for it and one has to pick between 7.1 + Zone 2 and 5.1.2 + Zone 2. 5.1 setting is "basic" and does not allow addition of Zone 2. Kinda' silly. Receivers need to be more flexible. All seven amp receivers should allow for 3 zones at once with 3.1 in main, 2.0 in Zone 2 and 2.0 in Zone 3. One could set it to party mode and have the same music in the living room, kitchen(or basement) and patio.

Oh, I totally forgot about configuration AFTER amp assign. When set to 7.1 + Zone 2, set back surround speakers to NONE. You will hear a click as those amps turn off. Then, exit setup. Switch the MAIN/ZONE 2 switch on the remote control to Zone 2 and press POWER. You should hear a click as the amps for Zone 2 turn on. See if sound is output to Zone 2. If so, all is good and those two amps should click off when you power off Zone 2 and go back to 5.1 setup in main room and will not send a signal to surround back speakers that are not there. Once amp assign and speaker configuration is dialed in, I recommend using the MusicCast app to do switching of sources in each room. Setup isn't too difficult in the app and once done is really cool.

I keep forgetting stuff, lol. Since there are 5.1 speakers in the main zone, setting surround back speakers to NONE will reroute info from the surround back channels in a 7.1 track to the surround speakers in the 5.1 setup so the info is not lost on speakers that are not connected to the surround back terminals.

 

[Trebdp83]

Hmmm, the more I play with this feature, the more cool it gets. Can't speak to every model, but I do like how it works. So, let's say parents are entertaining guests on the patio. With everything set up correctly and the MusicCast app and receiver connected to the network, one can take out their smart device and turn on just Zone 2 from the app and stream music outside. Let's say kids go into the living room and play a movie on a disc player connected to the receiver. With just Zone 2 on outside, receiver will pass picture AND sound to the TV. The kids decide they want the bells and whistles since they are watching a Marvel movie. So, they go outside and ask how to get the "good sound" on. Going back to the app, one can power on the Main Zone and get the 5.1 system blasting without ever interrupting the music streaming in Zone 2. If the kids decide to turn off the movie, one can power off the Main Zone from the app and just go back to powering Zone 2. Distinguishing between the Zones can be made even easier by taking pics of one's actual living room and patio and applying those pics to the designated Zones. Oh, and this all worked with HDMI-CEC and ARC on. Cool. Suppose I'll leave the Yamaha connected for a bit. I received three free months of Qobuz after updating my Play-fi app and MusicCast supports Qobuz. So I don't have to use Play-fi to stream to the Onkyo. Though, I usually switch back to the Onkyo after a week of frustration.

 

[Bryfish]

Thank you for your last two in depth replies. My family has currently taken over the system, so I won't have a chance to try out your guidance until sometime tomorrow. Really appreciate your time with this, and I'll report back.

 

[BMXTRIX]

It can be confusing if one has a 5.1 setup in the main room and wants to use Zone 2 speakers somewhere. There isn't really a setting for it and one has to pick between 7.1 + Zone 2 and 5.1.2 + Zone 2.

5.1 setting is "basic" and does not allow addition of Zone 2. Kinda' silly.

Someone else was having an issue with their Yamaha as well, and looking through the Yamaha manual I was super disappointed when I was reading about the Zone 2 setup and the configurations. Not including a 5.1 + Z2 as an option was absolute stupidity IMO. Just bad management on their part. They should absolutely offer up a 5.1 + Z2 option to help alleviate confusion. It would then automatically disable a end-user from even having the surround back speakers as an option or the Atmos speakers as an option. Same thing as going into the menu yourself and setting them to 'NONE', but why should the end user have to figure that out?

I've got no doubt that Yamaha has received hundreds of emails and that the service rep. is just like "RTFM!!!", when they should get the hint that the manual and settings are really bad and that maybe they need to fix the user interface to make it easier on end users.

5.1 + Z2 would just make it super clear what was going on, or something which clearly made the selection of those speaker connections clear.

I guess part of it is that Yamaha uses the same top-down firmware design for all of their products. So, it is designed for receivers which can offer up both those extra 2 amplified channels as well as a set of preouts and the amplified channels can be used in the theater while the preouts can be connected to an external amplifier. Still, it's just silly not to make it clear to the end user what those last two channels will be used for. I guess it's like amps which have 15 speaker terminals on the back but only 7 channels of amplification. The extra connections are basically there for 'show' instead of function. Such silliness and confusion needlessly created.

 

[Trebdp83]

Confusion can also be added to those who might think that the number of speaker terminals determines what will work all at once. So, if they have 7.1 in the main zone and 2.0 in another room, they may think it should all work at once without realizing they only have seven amps to work with in the first place and they will lose either surround back speakers or height speakers when using Zone 2. It's not an issue for those with a 5.1 setup in the main zone but they will have to make a few silly adjustment to account for 5.1 setup since 5.1 + Zone 2 is not an option.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Confusion can also be added to those who might think that the number of speaker terminals determines what will work all at once. So, if they have 7.1 in the main zone and 2.0 in another room, they may think it should all work at once without realizing they only have seven amps to work with in the first place and they will lose either surround back speakers or height speakers when using Zone 2. It's not an issue for those with a 5.1 setup in the main zone but they will have to make a few silly adjustment to account for 5.1 setup since 5.1 + Zone 2 is not an option.

I literally just realized that was why they have those extra speaker terminals. For the life of me, I didn't understand until today why they even bothered with extra terminals. Now I realize that it is so you can hook up both surround back/Atmos speakers AND zone 2/3 speakers to the same receiver and that the receiver will power off the in-theater speakers one pair at a time so you can use the additional zones/channels of amplification.

It doesn't make me feel one bit better about them doing it.

In my life, I've just always have pushed for a second amplifier for a stereo zone, and I've pushed for multi-channel amps for whole house audio. Consider you can pick up 12-channel whole-house-audio amps for about $400 or so via eBay that work great, it seems like the better way to go in terms of reliability.

 

[Trebdp83]

Wireless tech has made getting sound to other rooms for music much easier. If one is using Apple, HEOS, MusicCast or Sonos ecosystems, they can use Smart devices to send music to one or potentially all of the speakers in their network. In this case, the receiver in the main room is treated like any another speaker in the chain and only has to worry about powering the speakers in its own room. So, if somebody had a Denon, an Onkyo and a Yamaha receiver in three different rooms that all supported, say Airplay 2, they could go into their Airplay 2 capable iPad/iPhone/Mac and select all three of the receivers as speakers and stream music to all of them at once using a music app in their device. If each one of them was a 7.1 receiver with two subs connected and set to ALL CHANNEL STEREO , one could be filling the house with sound from twenty one speakers and six subs. Set up correctly, one wouldn't even need to go to each room and power everything up as sending a signal over Airplay 2 would power all of them up and play the music in the pre selected mode. It's no more expensive to get receivers and bookshelf speakers to do this kind of job. Have you seen the price of s#%ty wireless network speakers? Anybody with amps and speakers to spare will be fine using different Zone settings in their receiver as long as they can figure them out.