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Proper setup of 2 Zones (1 Viewer)

techbase

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Jason Faarberg
I Recently bought a Yamaha RX-A2000 7.1 Receiver and have setup the system with some Martin Logan Motion speakers, Oppo-93, Playstation, Xbox, Epson 3010e, popcorn hour C-200, and Sony Bravia LCD. I don't want to retire a Marantz 6.1 SR-4300 I scooped up as well so I was hoping to put it in a detached Garage and use it as an amp for Zone 2 speakers. Total Feet is approx. 120' through walls and 6" cement all of which has a pvc pipe route already laid out. I'm far from technically disadvantaged but I am a noob in regards to proper setup of this equipment. I am hoping for some help with opinions on the best connections setup. The Marantz has 6.1 input jacks. I would think that I should use the pre-out on the Yamaha to connect to the 6.1 inputs on the Marantz rather than run speaker wire. I don't want a loss of power to zone 1 or zone 2. I know with 8Ω speakers, 12AWG should be sufficient for speaker wire. RCA jacks at that length I could only find 22AWG. Is that sufficient to connect to the input? The 6.1 Channel input is also a weird setup...2 total jacks for the front, 2 total for surround, 1 jack each for Surr-Back, Center and sub. The sub I understand. APPRECIATE! any help regarding connection setup and recommendations for website to purchase wires at these lengths. Monoprice and Blue Jeans Cable are what I have been looking at so far.
 

gene c

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I wouldn't use the rca cables to hook the Zone Out's of the Yamaha to the Marantz receiver. You would be passing through the volume control of both the Yamaha and the Marantz which isn't a good idea. The Multi-Ch inputs is a weird setup because it uses 6 (or 8) different connections for the same input. All of those connectors are only accessed when you choose the Multi-Ch input on the Marantz (instead of, say, the DVD input or the AUX input) so even though there are several connectors they can only be connected to one source, not two. In theory, you could connect Zone 1 to the CD input on the Marantz and Zone 2 to the DVD input but again, you would also pass through all of the processing and volume controls on the way to the Marantz's amplifier. This is not a good thing to do. I would just buy the 120' of speaker wire and run it from the speaker terminals. Use something like 12 g CL2 rated wire from Monoprice. The only problem I see with this setup is you will be too far away from the Yamaha to use the Zone 2/3 remotes. FYI, Multi-Ch inputs are used when the player is decoding the sound format (like Dolby Digital, DTS, DVD-Audio, SACD) so there needs to be a seperate cable for each channel. These first appeared when dvd player first arrived but DD/DTS decoders were too expensive to be added to receivers. So the dvd player decoded the signal (or an external decoder) which was sent to the reciver with multiple connections. These receivers were called "Dolby Digital Ready". Later, they were used with MC SACD and DVD-Audio which were never available through the optical connection for copywright and limited bandwidth reasons. With a typical digital connection (like Optical) all channels are sent to the receiver through one cable and the receiver decodes the signal and sends them to the individual speaker outputs (after processing and amplification of course). HDMI is also digital but with it's multiple pins, it can send the signal both ways. Either as Bitstream (un-coded) or as LPCM (decoded).
 

techbase

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Thanks for the Reply and info Gene. My idea was to use the Marantz as a second amp for the zone 2 speakers from the Yamaha so I don't have to lose any power on the Yamaha's Zone 1 while using both zones at the same time. Would this be a correct assumption or are you saying to take the Marantz out of the mix all together? The WiFi reaching the garage is down to 65 Mb/s so I've decided to run a cat6 line instead of getting stronger antennas or expanders and figured I would run the other cables/wire at the same time. The install will not be a problem; just time. In the Garage I've been using only a computer for Digitized music and internet radio. I figured since I picked up the Marantz, have an extra 5.1 JBL Sat setup I would install the system so I could use some of the Yamaha's features such as Sirius, internet radio, and some of the yamaha processing. When outdoors/in garage I would use the wifi remote which I have tested and is a key feature for this setup. I was also hoping to hook-up the Epson 3010e to the Marantz when I take it outdoors so I don't have to be limited to the crappy 10 watt on-board speakers the projects tries to limit us to. As far as Volume control is there I guess I'm trying to figure out the limits of the equipment and still trying to understand the concept of pre-outs from the Yamaha to a zone 2 amplifier to speaker output.
 

gene c

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Pre-outs are designed to be used with seperate amplifiers not other receivers. I've never tried it before but I suppose you could use the front l/r channels of the multi-inputs on the Marantz for Zone 2. They bypass all of the Marantz processing and send the signal straight to the volume control. Just be carefull with the volume controls on both receivers.
 

techbase

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Jason Faarberg
Thanks everyone. I will run speaker wire to hook up some outdoor speakers and setup the marantz as a separate system. I will look into getting an amp in the future. Thanks again.
 

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