Can I get 9 Speakers From my 7.1 Receiver? (1 Viewer)

[Christian Coulis]

It will be clear to you that I am a novice......

I have a 7.1 Pioneer Elite VSX-42. It is a few years old, but works fine for my needs. We are moving and want to use it to hook up to 9 speakers. I am OK if they all run off the same input....it's a large Game / TV / Bar area of the basement. There is no need to play multiple sources between the zones.

Is there a way to do this? Can I split the "Zone 2" speakers and turn them from 2 speakers to 4 without damaging anything? Is there anything I can do besides investing in a new receiver?

I appreciate any input or advice.

 

[JohnRice]

Each channel in a 7.1 receiver does a specific thing. What do you want the extra 2 speakers to do? That receiver doesn't have preamp outputs, so you there will be limitations and potential hazards.

 

[Christian Coulis]

Each channel in a 7.1 receiver does a specific thing. What do you want the extra 2 speakers to do? That receiver doesn't have preamp outputs, so you there will be limitations and potential hazards.

Thanks John.
I only want to play music / movies from 1 source at a time through all the speakers. I would also like the option to turn 2 or 4 speakers off at any given time.

 

[JohnRice]

OK, you're dealing with different objectives. 7.1 is surround sound, which is fundamentally different from 2 channel music, or music that has been matrixed into pseudo surround. So, just playing 2 channel music throughout the room, on all the speakers, is a completely different thing from watching a movie in surround sound, and they are accomplished using different hardware. For instance, your receiver just isn't designed to distribute 2 channel (non surround) music throughout the room on multiple pairs of speakers. You can configure it to output sound from all the speakers, but all except the L&R will be matrixed surround, and what you get probably won't be remotely what you want.

Before giving any suggestions, I need to be certain you understand what you want.

 

[Christian Coulis]

OK, you're dealing with different objectives. 7.1 is surround sound, which is fundamentally different from 2 channel music, or music that has been matrixed into pseudo surround. So, just playing 2 channel music throughout the room, on all the speakers, is a completely different thing from watching a movie in surround sound, and they are accomplished using different hardware. For instance, your receiver just isn't designed to distribute 2 channel (non surround) music throughout the room on multiple pairs of speakers. You can configure it to output sound from all the speakers, but all except the L&R will be matrixed surround, and what you get probably won't be remotely what you want.

Before giving any suggestions, I need to be certain you understand what you want.

Thanks again. To clarify; my objective is to use the typical 5.1 setting (front 5 speakers and sub) for movies, sports and general TV. This is the only time I lwould care about “surround sound”, but is 80% of what we do with the space.

The other 20% of the time, we would be listening to music or watching a game and I would like to turn on speakers 6-7 and 8-9 (if my receiver would support this). I’m not looking for theater style surround sound when we do this, I just want to be able to spread the sound.

I know I don’t have an issue with doing this, thru speaker #7. I am trying to figure out if I can leverage the equipment that I already own and get the ability to have a #8-9 or not. Ideally, 6/7 and 8/9 are independent, but I can live with 6-9 being all on or all off.