A-Bus, powered zone 2, or some other method? (1 Viewer)

[BobCleary]

I'm not sure if this belongs in this forum or some other forum, so moderators please feel free to move this thread.

I want to connect a second pair of speakers in another room and am looking for the best method to do this.

Here are some specifics. My Integra 5.4 receiver is in the living room running a 5.1 system there. I want to run a pair of speakers in the kitchen, which is on the same level about 40 feet or so from the receiver.

Here are the options that I'm aware of.

1. Use the powered zone 2 feature of the Integra. The advantage is that it's easy to set up. The disadvantages are that I can't run 5.1 in the living room if I'm running zone 2 (not a big deal), and that I'd have to walk into the living room to adjust the volume in the kitchen.

2. Use A-Bus. The advantage is greater flexibility in that volume can be controlled from the kitchen and that I could still (not 100% sure of this part) run 5.1 in the living room while running zone 2. The disadvantage is slightly more installation complexity and some extra cost.

3. Use some other (Niles?) control. I don't know much about this option, but I think it would be sort of a hybrid of the above two options. I'd run powered zone 2, but have control of volume via some miniplug connection back to the receiver. This would be in between options 1 and 2 both in terms of installation complexity and cost.

What recommendations do the folks here have?

 

[WarrenHH]

Bob, not sure if this helps, but this is what I am doing.

I am running about 8 extra pair of speakers in different areas of my house. The nice part about the a-bus contoller is that you run cat5 wire from the abus controller to each location you want speakers in. You only have to run speaker wire, from the volume switch in the wall, to the actual speaker holes in the ceiling or wall.

The volume controls I am using have IR ports in them, and you wire them up to a repeater at the AV equipment.

Now you can listen to any source from your receiver, in any room, and control the components from there too.

The controllers I am getting do four zones each, so I am cascading two of them together.

Hope this helps you, I am not exactly sure of the operation of your particular receiver, but all you need is line level out of the second zone, the abus will do the rest.