Planning a 7.1.4/6 family room HT system. I want the adjacent open kitchen to have a TV and stereo in-ceiling that mirrors what is playing on the main HT system in the family room.
Tentatively the receiver is Denon 4400H with an additional amp driving the 11 channels needed in the family room. So I have no pre outs remaining for the kitchen speakers. My thought is to run HDMI only to a lower end Denon receiver in the kitchen that will drive the kitchen TV and stereo ceiling speakers. Alternately I could run HDMI directly to the kitchen TV and then run audio out of the TV to the secondary receiver to drive the ceiling stereo pair. Thoughts?
I would rather not buy a 13 channel pre/pro or receiver. I prefer a $1000 HT receiver with 3-7 channels output to a power amp. I will put in six Atmos speakers, even if I can't drive the middle pair with a 4400H class of receiver today. (Denon's attempt to encourage Auro 3D obscures their Atmos capability. I'm betting that Auro 3D is a dead end.)
I prefer Denon/Marantz for my use over Yamaha, based in part on Gene's reviews. But I'm open all brands.
You really don't need a receiver for the kitchen unless:
You want to listen to a different radio station and one room is already using the tuner.
I haven't tried it, but if you want to listen to HEOS in one room and different music using HEOS and another hand-held device in another room, it might not work. I can check that later in the week.
Make sure the TVs have the same resolution, or EDID will rear its ugly head and make the video go away until the resolution of the sources and TVs are dumbed down or you insert an HDMI splitter on the second TV's feed (or find a way to spoof the EDID).
If you want a good amp, don't want to spend a ton and want it to turn on/off automatically, look at Audio Source.
