Connector Assistance Required

[hbholland]

Hello all;

I am wondering if you can help me out or perhaps point me at some documentation. I have a Denon AVR-688 receiver, recently purchased. On the back it has a zone 2 audio output which are RCA style jacks. I had my house pre-wired with front porch and back patio speakers, each of which have an impedance matching volume control switch inside the front and back door. The wires are all ganged near the stereo... so far so good. With my old stereo it was simply a matter of pulling the cables out of the wall far enough to feed into the speaker output on the receiver. With the new receiver it has the RCA jacks... now am I completely mad in thinking that there should be a wall jack available with a screw terminal on one side to connect the stranded wires coming from the volume controls and an RCA jack on the other to connect to the receiver? I'm sure this is elementary, but I'll be darned if I can find such a connector, unless I am doing something very very wrong... I did find one with a punch down in the back and RCA on the front, but the wire gauge is too big, so my husband cut some of the strands off to make it fit, and I don't feel comfortable with this setup... or am I being paranoid.

Any help would be much appreciated...

hbholland

 

[MDS]

Zone 2 line-out jacks are there if you want to use an external amplifier for the speakers in zone 2. You wouldn't connect an RCA jack directly to speaker wire even if you could because the line-level signal needs to be amplified and the volume controls typically do not have an amplifier built in.

The receiver should also have normal speaker outputs for zone 2. Typically on 7.1 receivers you use the surround back speaker outputs for zone 2 but then are limited to 5.1 in the main zone when zone 2 is active. If this receiver doesn't have speaker outputs for zone 2 then you have to purchase an amplifier. You can get an inexpensive amplifier that is suitable for zone 2, like an AudioSource, for about $50.

 

[hbholland]

Zone 2 line-out jacks are there if you want to use an external amplifier for the speakers in zone 2. You wouldn't connect an RCA jack directly to speaker wire even if you could because the line-level signal needs to be amplified and the volume controls typically do not have an amplifier built in.

The receiver should also have normal speaker outputs for zone 2. Typically on 7.1 receivers you use the surround back speaker outputs for zone 2 but then are limited to 5.1 in the main zone when zone 2 is active. If this receiver doesn't have speaker outputs for zone 2 then you have to purchase an amplifier. You can get an inexpensive amplifier that is suitable for zone 2, like an AudioSource, for about $50.

Is there an idiot's guide to setting up external zones to tell you what the options are and how to go about it? It seems to me like like I'm not really going to gain anything over my old receiver's ability. That had speaker A & B buttons to turn two sets of speaker on or off, so the tv speakers were connected to the A terminals and the two outdoor sets of speakers were connected to the B terminals and we just turned the volume down on the set we weren't using. From what you are describing, it looks like we need to do pretty much the same thing, unless we put in the second amplifier. Will the second amp gain me any advantage, such as being able to listen to two sources at once? I apologize for posting here if this is the wrong section... it seemed like a simple thing...

 

[MDS]

The A & B speaker outputs on most, if not all, receivers are wired in parallel so running two sets at the same time is a huge load for the receiver to deal with and is genreally not recommended. Both sets of speakers would play the same source. A OR B is ok.

The zone 2 feature on a receiver allows you to listen to two separate sources at the same time. On a typical 7.1 receiver you could watch a movie in 5.1 in the main zone and listen to a CD on the patio in stereo at the same time and you don't need an external amp because the receiver is using 2 of its 7 channels to amplify the second zone.

If you use an external amp connected to the line outs you retain the ability to do 7.1 in the main zone while still playing 2 channels of the same or different source in the second zone. Your second zone is actually two pairs of speakers but since you have IM volume controls that is not a problem.

The only requirement is that any source you want to listen to in zone 2 must be connected to the receiver via analog connections (the standard red and white audio jacks).

I'll try to get the manual for the AVR-688 to see what if offers for zone 2 capability.

 

[MDS]

In case you don't have the manual, here it is: http://usa.denon.com/AVR-688-OM-E_102.pdf

The zone 2 stuff is described (poorly) starting on page 47. This is a normal 7.1 receiver so what I've said above applies. You won't need an external amp.

It looks like the 'Amp Assign' menu setting defaults to Zone2 so you won't have to change it. All you have to do is connect the speaker wires for the zone 2 speakers to the 'surround back left' and 'surround back right' speaker terminals on the receiver and then use the zone 2 button on the receiver/remote to engage zone 2 when you want to listen to those speakers. The manual describes how to select the source for zone 2.

Given that your zone 2 actually consists of two sets of speakers you have to twist the wires together. Take the two positive speaker wires from the left patio and left porch speakers and twist them together and then insert them into the positive termal of the surround back left terminal on the receiver. Likewise for the negatives of the left speakers. Do the same for the right speakers (positives together and negatives together) and insert them into the surround back right terminal on the receiver.

You will be able to play one source in the main room and a different source in zone 2 but zone 2 will be both the patio and porch speakers. You can just use the volume control on the wall to turn one or the other off if you only want sound from one of those locations.