Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Brand new 3808! Speaker set up question

My amazing daughter just surprised me with an 3808! Now I can only lust for the EP-800. Here's my question-
I have a 5.1 system plus a pair of speakers outside on the deck, plus another pair in the kitchen. With my 2308 I had the 5.1 fronts as 'Front A', the outside speakers as 'Front B', and the kitchen speakers as Zone 2.
I'm a little surprised that the 3808 does not have Front A and Front B, but it does have Surround A and Surround B. Can the Surround B be used as a Front B (perhaps through an amp assign)? I don't want them playing late at night if I'm watching a movie in 5.1. I need to use Zone 2 for the kitchen speakers.

The surround B channels are not assignable I wish they were too). You can only assign the rear channels for zone use. I think you will have to run a seperate switcher off the back surround chanels to the kitchen and back deck.

They took away the front B in exchange for dual side surrounds, not as useable IMO.

No, Joe; the surround A and B provision doesn't involve separate amplifier channels. It's simply a parallel connection of the one surround channel to two different sets of side surround speakers(e.g., one set multi-polar and one set direct radiating)which can be selected either individually to suit or even played together. Since there's only identical side surround sound material in either A or B, it wouldn't be sensible to connect one of the outputs to a front speaker.

That's disappointing, as is the remote (but I'm not surprised by that). So far, I haven't been able to figure out how to adjust the AVR display dimmer with the remote. The worst part is, without that, I can't program my Harmony One to do it either!

In the GUI menu, go to manual setup (the icon with the tools).
Then go over to option setup and go down through the list to "Dimmer". There really is not a great deal of range in the dimmer, at least not that I can tell. Doesn't make a great deal of difference except for turning it completely off.

Joe, there's one step that might be acceptable to you if powering the deck speakers with the 3808 is really that important. Since feeding surround material to the deck speakers wouldn't be acceptable, if main channel material could be fed to the surround speakers, the deck speakers would be playing that sound when connected to one of the sets of surround terminals. In an "all channel stereo" mode the surround speakers get the same material as the front speakers. If you connect the deck speakers to the surround B terminals and select the all channel stereo mode and surround B, the deck speakers will be playing as front speakers. The disadvantage is that while you have this setting in effect the main system will of course be only stereo. When the deck speakers wouldn't be necessary you'd select your regular mode and surround A, so the deck speakers would be silent.

That's an interesting possibility. The only time I used the deck speakers is for an outdoor party, so surround sound in the house is not a concern. I think you might have hit on my solution...thanks. I was almost ready to go back to the 2308 and return the 3808.