Onkyo tx-nr636 (1 Viewer)

Hey guys, I made a post a while back about looking for a receiver for my friend's new garage/upstairs lounge. I'm incredibly indecisive about this stuff, and have still been looking into it. Anyways, I think I found THE one. We want two sets of HDMI outputs so he can in the future add in a projector if he wants. There's going to be two zones, the upstairs lounge, and the garage speakers. I'm seeing with the nr636 there's two zones, but is it capable of turning off the second zone? We don't want the garage speakers running if he's just upstairs watching tv. And the features also mention "bi-amping" but I can't find any specific details about it. From what I saw, it'd bridge the main fronts and the surround rear channels to run the main front set of speakers, correct? If we run the front's bridged, would it still allow us to run the second zone at the same time?


I've never done a setup with multi-zone, so i'm rather unfamiliar with it. We want to be able to play music for parties through both zones, but be able to use the main zone for movies and football or whatever.


Thanks educating me

You have to turn on 2nd Zone. Therefore there is "off".

Biamping an AVR is pointless.

Why is bi-amping pointless? Does it not provide more power for the main channel? We're only running one big set of towers, no surrounds. Ok so the second zone can be turned off, but will it run while the fronts are hooked up in bi-amp?

Hi, you are corrrect, this AVR has two HDMi outputs, one for the main room, listed as "HDMI MAIN" and the second for the future prokector, listed as "HDMI SUB", so you;re good to go there.


Next is the "Zone 2", this AVR has a powered "Zone 2" so all you have to do is run speaker wire from the speaker terminals labeled "Zone 2" and connect them to speakers mounted downstairs. The only caveat here is that you cannot play audio from a digital connected source, like a BD player connected with HDMI. The Zone 2 source must be connected with an analog connection, RCA cables. If you plan on using a BD player as a source for Zone 2, just run an additional analog RCA cable with the HDMI to an analog input. (Remember, HDMI inputs are assignable so you can use the same source with two inputs)


You can however use the built in network to play music from Pandora, internt radio, etc.


Also you can watch a BD/DVD upstairs (or anything else) and play something completely different downstairs but only from the analog connected devices.

As for the "NET", "USB" and "BLUETOOTH", you cannot select different inputs for the main room and separate room. For example, if "NET" has been selected in the main room and then "USB" is selected as playback source in the separate room, the input in the main room will change to "USB" accordingly.


As "schan" said, you can turn it off, actuall it defaults to off, you have to turn it on the get sound downstairs.


Last, Bi-amping is if you want to add seprate amps, which you really don't need if you're only going to have stereo speakers anyway. This feature is usually designed for larger, more elaborate home theaters.


Hope this helps.

lots of good info, thanks! Just to clarify before i go ahead and order anything, if I wanted to play music from pandora, or through bluetooth, its capable of outputting the same music to both zones, correct?

JoeGibs said:

lots of good info, thanks! Just to clarify before i go ahead and order anything, if I wanted to play music from pandora, or through bluetooth, its capable of outputting the same music to both zones, correct?

Click to expand...

Net and USB only for Zone 2.

Not Bluetooth. But, that is what Bluetooth Music Receivers are for.

alright, so net and USB can be run through both zones at the same time? bluetooth isnt important.