Onkyo TX-SR702 Zone 2 problem

[tgeore1792]

Hi all, I'm sort of a novice at this stuff, but I have an Onkyo 702 receiver, all is working fine. BUT, I bought this pair of small outdoor speakers...Yamaha NS-AW150. I have them connected to Zone 2, to try and play them outside. I can get them working in zone 2, but very softly. If I turn them up using the 'level' control for zone 2, or turn up the input level from my iPod, it instantly shuts the power down into 'protect' mode. Additionally, one of the speakers is much softer than the other...can anyone help me? The speakers impedance is 6 ohms, and the have a nominal input of 35 watts and maximum input of 120 watts. Is the receiver just to powerful? HELP!
Thanks for your time, Tony...

 

[adk highlander]

Hi tgeore1792 and welcome to the forum.

The first thing I would check would be the wiring to the speakers. It sounds like you may have reversed the wires or have a short somewhere. It is going into protection mode so it does not fry the amp. Your amp is not too powerful and the 6ohm impedance of the speakers is fine.

Pages 76-77 of your manual has all the setup information for the Zone 2 functions of your system. Make sure you have Powered Zone 2 in the Hardware settings.

Also you can only use analog connections. How was your I-Pond connected to the receiver?

 

[tgeore1792]

thanks very much for the reply. as for the ipod, it's just basically a headphone jack that goes into RCA cables in the 'CD' input. the rest of the system (5.1) is working great, it's just the zone 2 that is giving me problems. i checked the wiring, made sure it's positive to positive...all good. i switched the wires in the jacks in the back of the reciever, from putting left into right, and confirmed that it is only one speaker that is playing much softer and triggering the 'protect' mode, not the other, and not the jacks. Not sure if I should try another cable? Or if it could be a defective speaker or something. They seemed to work fine when I plugged them into the normal front (L, R) speaker jacks.
I can continue to try to isolate the speaker and cable individually as well using other equipment. Could it be that zone 2 goes haywire when both speakers are connected? Just trying to isolate the problem and confused. But if you think it's not an issue that the amp and speakers aren't compatible that's good. But does zone 2 have different power specs than the normal 7.1 part? Sorry for so many questions. I'm new at this.
Best,
Tony

 

[MDS]

But does zone 2 have different power specs than the normal 7.1 part?

No, the receiver uses the surround back channels to power zone 2. That's why you can only have 5.1 in zone 1 if zone 2 is active.

Make sure the zone 2 speakers are connected to the zone 2 (surround back) speaker outputs and you do not also have other speakers connected to the same outputs.

The headphone out on the iPod is very low level. You may have to turn the volume on the iPod to max to get any appreciable sound out of it. I think most iPod docs can send out a line-level signal, so using a doc will get you better volume.