Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Multi-Room

Any advice would be greatly appeciated. I've always been more interested in just music, rather than the home theater experience. But now I'm considering buying an AV receiver, such as the Denon 2803 or the Yamaha V557 because they seem to offer so much value, even in strictly audio applications. My current system has 6 pairs of speakers (one pair in each of 6 rooms). I have an old hafler preamp, an even older Mitsubishi analog tuner, and several newer (by my standards - they're from the late 1980's) power aplifiers (rotel, yamaha, carver, NAD) connected to a Niles MRZ-6 Line Level Multi-Room Control Ssytem. The Niles unit offers 6 sets of pre-outs and a whole host of remote control capabilities, but I don't use the remote control capabilities. I really just bought it to have all the pre-outs. The Hafler preamp only has one set. I can control the volume of each room via the Niles. I have to listen to the same source in all rooms, but that is fine with me.

I really need to get a newer tuner and I'd really like to have a preamp with more input and output options. The AV receivers all have several digital inputs and at least one digital output, and they have a staggering number of analog inputs. The Denon 2803 seems very versatile. It has several sets of pre-outs, as well as several speaker terminals driven by the receiver's on-board amps. My questions: Would it be possible for me to simultaneously connect/run three amps to the pre-outs and also drive 3 sets of speakers connecting them direclty to the receiver's speaker input terminals? That way I could get rid of the Niles unit. But is it possible to connect a power amp to the pre-out called "front speakers" and at the same time run a set of speakers directly from the AVR's speaker terminal called "front speakers"? Would all the Dolby Digital Surround ET 7.1, DTS Pro-logic 2, etc. screw things up if I'm just using my system for old fashion two channel stereo? I've noticed that some of the Yamaha receivers have a feature called "2-Channel Stereo Mode" and "Analog Mix-down". I wonder if something like that could help me. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

Stiles, welcome. I've gone over your description several times, but I'm still not seeing the advantage even if it all would work. The point about a new tuner is clear, but then it gets tangled-up. Yes, you could feed several distant amplifiers from the front channel pre-outs of the receiver, just as you do with the Hafler-Niles arrangement now. No, it isn't likely that you could successfully drive three sets of speakers in parallel from the front speaker terminals because of the low impedance resulting(e.g. three 8 ohm loads in parallel result in a 2.67 ohm net impedance). But again, even if all of this could be done, what is the reason for wanting to do it instead of simply continuing to use the Niles unit?

Thanks for the response, John K. My idea was to simplify my whole system by getting rid of the Niles unit. I also have a Niles speaker selector box (that I didn't mention), which is hooked up to the Carver amp. I thought I might be able to get rid of that too. And I don't think I was clear about my plan. I wouldn't try to run 3 sets of speakers in parallel from the front speaker terminal. I'd run one pr each from the front speaker terminal, back speaker terminal, and surrond speaker terminal posts. And one pair each (through 3 separate power amps) from the pre-outs labeled as front, surrond, and back speakers. So each set of speakers would have its own separate amplifier circuitry. The bigger and/orless efficient speakers (Kefs, Snells) would each have their own separate free standing power amp. The smaller, 8-ohm speakers (NHT Super Ones)would be driven by the receivers 6 separate applification channels. The question is: Can you have a set of speakers connected to the front speaker terminal (driven by the receiver's amp) and another set (hooked up in series with a power amp) hooked up to the pre-outs labeled front speakers? And the same question for the back speaker and surrond speaker designations. I'm also unsure about the ramifications of the receiver's built-in cross-over for the sub woofer. I currently only have one sub (with a built in amp and active cross-over) that I use in my main listening room and I connect it with long patch cords in series between the Niles unit and the power amp that powers my main speakers. So the cross over only effects the frequencies sent to the speakers that are in the same room as my sub.

My main reason for getting rid of the Niles units was to help defray the cost of the new reciever, which, as you said, I really need for its new tuner, as well as all the digital inputs and outputs. I'd like to connect my computer to my stereo and it is over 100' from my stereo. So I'd like to run toslink cable from my computer to a optical digital input in the receiver. I've already tried running 100' of patch cords and the signal becomes very week. I'm assuming the signal wouldn't degrade nearly as much if trasmitted digitally over the toslink (I hope that is not a bad assumption). But I'm also think you may be right: I'd better hang onto the Niles unit and simply connect it to the Zone 2 preouts from the AV receiver. I appreciate your thoughts.

Okay Stiles, now it's a bit clearer. First, using the speaker output terminals doesn't disable the pre-outs, so both can be used simultaneously. Next, using the surround amp channels on an HT receiver ordinarily sends only surround material to the speakers, but a mode usually called something like "all channel stereo" sends the front left to the left side and back surround channels and likewise for the right side. So, in that mode two sets of front speakers in other rooms could be driven by the surround amps in the receiver(with significant power loss unless very thick speaker wire, e.g. 10ga, was used).

Your description of what your sub is doing may or may not be the case(for most subs it isn't); the internal sub crossover doesn't have any effect on the output to main speakers connected through the sub, it simply rolls off the sub above the set frequency. Some subs have a separate filter on the output to the mains which rolls them off below a certain frequency(e.g. 80Hz), but in most cases it's just a straight feed of the full range.

No, don't count on using a Toslink connection for 100 feet; the losses are higher, not lower, than a coaxial cable.

So, you can use an HT receiver in the way that you propose, but if your main purpose is to get a good tuner, consider getting a separate one such as the Marantz ST6000 and keeping the rest of your setup the same if it's working well.