Thoughts on 2 Zone (Main and whole house) setup?

[Mike 7]

Background:
Zone 2 (whole house) = 6 rooms each with 2 speakers and Audiosource wall volume (impedence) controls
Zone 1 (TV room) = 7.1 and subwoofer connected to Yamaha RX-A840 AV receiver
Niles 2100 Amp is powering Zone 2 and connected to zone 2 Red/white outs on receiver
Apple TV is connected to receiver via HDMI
HDMI monitor out from receiver to TV
Digital Antenna into TV and optical into receiver (AV 4)

Problem:
no sound is heard from zone 2 unless "party mode" is on, and seperate music (source) can't be heard in zone 2 only mirroring what's playing in zone 1. I noticed there are zone 2 ES speaker banana plugs but that means the AV receiver is driving zone 2 instead of Niles amp. Should I be using preouts (front) into niles amp, it works then but doesn't sound as good as if I need all the preouts plugged into Niles amp but then what's the point in having a zone 2? Possible mismatch on amp and receiver?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!!!!
Mike7

 

[Nestor]

Zone 2 typically outputs only analog input sources, and internal sources like network radio. By your picture, and what you stated, you won't be able to listen to anything separately if it's a digital source.
See page 77 of your manual.
You can confirm this by hooking up an analog component to one of your analog inputs.
Many receivers are limited this way, although I think the top end AVRs are including more flexibility lately.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk