Multi-room A/V receiver help! (1 Viewer)

[Basheer]

Gentlefolk (yes, that's you),

I've been gnawing at this problem for some months now but haven't come to a conclusion with which I'm happy.

Here's my situation. I want to have a 5.1 home theater setup in my family room and I already have 5 (to be 6) pairs of in-ceiling speakers for whole-house sound. These are currently powered very nicely by an HK 3470 stereo receiver (100W/channel, high current), also in the family room. I am looking for an A/V receiver to add to the same rack with the HK, DVD player, CD player, and tape player, but can't decide whether to:

1) Continue feeding my ceiling speakers with the HK3470 and add an A/V receiver with multi-room out to feed signal to the HK3470 from CD's tapes, etc.

2) Take the HK 3470 out of the picture and get an A/V receiver which can both power the HT speakers and pull double duty as a stereo amp for the in-ceiling speakers, though I don't expect to have the HT and ceiling speakers on at the same time.

My wife wants to simplify, especially the remote controls, of which we have several, so this is an incentive to go with a single-receiver setup. But I don't want to spend more than about $700 for the A/V receiver if I go with a single reciver.

I'm looking for suggestions and appreciate any help.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Basheer,

Your first option is the way to go. It would be best to retain your old HK to drive the remote speakers. Modern receivers are a different animal from old stereo receivers. The former are already required drive multiple speakers simultaneously, so there is little headroom or amplifier power available to drive remote speakers.

While some modern receivers have provisions for speaker-level connections for second zones, you should not use them, especially in the price range you are looking at. With that many remote speakers, you need a separate amp to drive them. Indeed, even with the HK, you should be using a speaker selector box to guarantee it sees a proper load.

I don’t see keeping the HK as “just another component to complicate things.” It would only serve as a slave amp; all controls – source selection, volume, etc. – would originate from the new receiver. Just make sure the new receiver has line-level multi-room output jacks to drive the HK. But you already knew that.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Basheer]

Wayne, thanks for your reply. It was very useful information and the kind of advice I was looking for. I'm looking at the Denon AVR 1803 with preamp level out. Will this allow for the same use of an external amp as line-level out?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Yes. However, a designated multi-room output might offer features that a regular pre-amp output won’t – like the ability for separate EQ or independent source selection – things like that. The features of a multi-room output will vary from manufacture and/or model to another.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Basheer]

Wayne, thanks again. I'm now trying to narrow my search and am starting a new thread in this regard. Best wishes. Basheer