Can a Yamaha RX-V579 be used as a Power Amp for either front or atmos rears preamped from a Yamaha RX-A3070

[Mikers]

About a year ago I built a small office addition to my house. As it was all new, I wired it for a 7.2.4 atmos setup but didn't have the money for an 11.2 receiver at the time.

I had a Yamaha RX-V570 which I was able to use for a reasonable 7.1 sound, but last weekend I managed to pick up a Yamaha RX-A3070 which, in theory, would allow me to use all 11 speakers in Atmos 7.2.4 setting..

I have managed to get the A-3070 working on 7.1.2 (front atmos being the last powered speakers) but you have to use the pre-outs from the A3070 into another amp to get the final 2 rear atmos speakers working. I've played around with the RCA out from the A3070 into the RCA in for AV6 on the RX-579 but no joy getting the rear atmos speakers to work or sound the test tone and yes, the a3070 is set to the pattern for 7.2.4 with the rear atmos set for external Power Amp.

Any thoughts on what I'm missing? Is the RXV-579 capable of acting as a power amp? Using B&W M1 mkII's for all 11 speakers for now. All speakers working if I plug them into the Front L/R jacks, so no problem with the wall wiring or the speakers themselves.

Help appreciated

 

[lovinthehd]

Same results using av4 and av5 inputs on the 579? Assuming you're setting correct input/mode/volume level in the 579....

If you've got the right amp assignment in the 3070 those are the inputs I'd try and use on the 579 to use it as an amp, it doesn't have a set of dedicated analog inputs for use as amp only as some units do.

 

[Mikers]

Yes to input and volume but what is mode?

 

[lovinthehd]

Yes to input and volume but what is mode?

Probably not a sound mode in your case but there are various configurations in some avsr for particular routing/upmixing type of things.....like taking a 2ch signal and upmixing it to a DTS or Dolby multich mode. Some avrs call them different things, especially Yamaha (and I don't speakYamaha particularly).

 

[j_garcia]

You will have to put a cover over the IR unit for the old AVR since the various switching, power, volume codes will be the same. I don't see why it wouldn't work, perhaps a factory reset on the 579 so that nothing exists from the former setup.

Not getting any sound is likely a config issue on the 3070 side though; I went through something similar on my current preamp until I found out I had to have it in 11.1 mode and had to assign those preouts to heights. They were unassigned by default, even in 11.1 mode.

 

[Eppie]

Yes, check the assignment on the A3070 as j_garcia suggested and check the manual that the Zone 3 / R-presence is the correct pre-out for rear ATMOS. Remember to reconfigure the old AVR for stereo operation. You don't want any decoding. Go into the speaker setup options and configure for 2 speakers. Connect the speakers to the main L+R channels and set the AVR either to Stereo or Direct mode for 2-channel audio.

 

[Mikers]

Thanks folks - checked everything over again and now working perfectly on 7.1.4 using the poweramp to drive the rear surrounds.

 

[lovinthehd]

Thanks folks - checked everything over again and now working perfectly on 7.1.4 using the poweramp to drive the rear surrounds.

What did it turn out to be?

 

[Mikers]

I'm not totally sure but I think it may be that with one amp sitting on top of the other and only the a3070 showing on the tv that when I used the remote to make setting changes on one the remote was also making changes to the other amp and somehow the settings got pooched. Works great now though. Using the remote volume does unfortunately change the volume on both amps, but if I use the apple remote or app on the ipad I can get only the 3070 to change.

 

[lovinthehd]

I'm not totally sure but I think it may be that with one amp sitting on top of the other and only the a3070 showing on the tv that when I used the remote to make setting changes on one the remote was also making changes to the other amp and somehow the settings got pooched. Works great now though. Using the remote volume does unfortunately change the volume on both amps, but if I use the apple remote or app on the ipad I can get only the 3070 to change.

Might follow jgarcia's suggestion of blocking the IR port on the 579 once you have the volume where you want it to be....