Surround Sound Speakers + 3 other Rooms

[Dr. Sid]

Hi. I've found some posts that are close to mine, but I still require some advice. We bought a house with 1 center, 2 front, and 2 rear speakers in Family Rm. Then we have a pairs of speakers mounted in the ceilings of 3 other rooms - with on/off switches and volume controls. I want surround sound in the Family Room from TV or CD, and CD music available for the remote speakers.

I've spent quite a while now researching receivers that accomodate the surround sound speakers and also have 1 or 2 add'l outputs (other Zones). I read many forum entries where folks using the receivers in my price range (Yamaha RX-V650 or Demon AVR-2807, for ex.) can't get the speakers in "Zone 2" to work at all! I haven't read one forum where somebody said they were successfully doing what I want to do.

Q1) Is there not a receiver that I can attach all my speakers to under $1000 and it will actually work? If not, has anyone actually successfully powered 3 other pair of speakers from the Yamaha RX-V650 or Demon AVR-2807, for ex. - using a small splitter box?
Q2) I have an old, reliable, Kenwood receiver at 55 watts per channel that I powered 3 pair of speakers with in my old house. (2 pair were on an A/B box ). Can I use this piece of hardware in this setup?
Q3) If I need a separate, more powerful, amp for these remote speakers, can I power all three pair with one amp? Has anyone actually got this to work?

I don't understand why I'm having so much trouble finding solution/product on the 'Net for this setup - many new homes have these room speakers. And I'm pretty technical. What am I missing? THANKS in advance for your help.
Sid

 

[jcPanny]

House System

Sid,
With a little setup, I think you can get your surround sound and house speakers running for under your budget.
First, take off the wall plates from your Volume controls in the 3 rooms and determine if they are the impedance matching variety. If so, set them to the 4x setting. This will allow the receiver or amp to see a >8 ohm impedance with 3 pairs of speakers connected. If your VCs do not have this feature, you will need to replace them or buy a speaker selector with this feature.

Next, pick up a receiver with the Zone 2 feature. The Yamaha RX-V659 is about $400 and is the cheapest Yamaha model with this feature. If you have the receiver and VCs you can try the powered Zone 2 feature to run the 3 pairs of speakers, but it probably wont be very loud.

To solve this, pick up an amp from AudioSource or the Behringer A500 with at least 100 Watts x 2 channels. This will have no problem driving 3 (or more) pairs of speakers to reasonable listening levels. You will connect the amp to the Zone 2 line output, allowing you to have up to 7.1 channels for the main HT.

Source for the Behringer Amp:
http://www.americanmusical.com/item.aspx?i=BEH A500&src=D0501PG0HAMS0000&cm_mmc=Pricegrabber-_-SearchEngine-_-Feed-_-BEH A500

 

[Jack Hammer]

Also, you can find some refurbished amps on uBid fairly cheaply*. Check back if you don't see what you like, they list new stuff fairly regularly.

The Audiosource Amp100's(50wx2) are good for background music only as they have a cheaper and lesser quality amplifier than the Amp 1/A's (80wx2), Amp200's (100wx2), or the Amp300's (150wx2) which all use torroidal amps. That and I just learned from Audiosource that the amp00's are only 4ohm stable (8 ohm stable bridged) contrary to their website and most product specs which listed them as 2 ohm stable. The 2 ohm rating is for all amps other than the Amp100. Whats nice about these is they have pass through inputs so you can send the signal to the next amp an to the next set of speakers to multiple rooms off of one zone.

Amplifiers on uBid

*note: most of these are factory refurbished and not brand new.