What should I buy? Amp or receiver?

[bsmith1975]

Hello everyone, we are building a new house and I have a question for you all. In our bonus room where we are putting the TV, we have 5 speakers for surround sound and then we have 2 speakers downstairs in the kitchen for music. The guy with our homebuilder told us we need a multiroom amplifier to control our system. We went to best buy but they didn't have anything like what we needed and confused the hell out of me. I haven't had to get anything like this before so I'm not exactly sure what we need, I believe what we need is a 3 channel amplifier with 5 speaker ports in one channel(for the surround) and then at least 2 on another fpr the music in th kitchen. I am also wondering how we could control the music from the kitchen if the amplifier is upstairs in the bonus room if it has Bluetooth can you just control it with your phone or something? Could you please help us out? Maybe recommend a good amplifier that would suit our needs.

 

[tyhjaarpa]

I myself would get receiver in your situation. There are models available you can control with smartphone, so that way you could control your unit from kitchen. You will need 5 channels for your living room and 2 channels for your kitchen. I would see using 2 zones, one for living room and one for kitchen. Marantz, Denon and Yamaha are brands you should look for. What is your budget for receiver? I'm sure some one can suggest you specific model when we know your budget. Also do you know what specific speakers you have?

 

[bsmith1975]

Thanks for the advise, the speakers are "speakercraft" wh series don't know what model they are as they just came in the builders packaged deal. Would ideally like to keep the price under 1000 for the receiver.

 

[afterlife2]

This one should do the trick and then you can look at a sub-woofer from SVS/HSU. It's has 2 Zones: http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/yamrxa740bl/yamaha-rx-a740-7.2-network-aventage-av-receiver-wi-fi/airplay-sale-reduced-20/1.html