Extending an RX-V2085 with an RX-V581?

Jt6572

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Hey AV Gurus,
I have just bought a Yamaha RX-V2085 9.2 channel with Dolby Atmos. With that alone, I am able to set it up as a 7.2.2 with the two front speakers, centre, 2 surround, 2 back surround and 2 front presence (I have 2 woofers).
From the manual I’m certain I can also have a 5.2.4 with the 3 front, 2 surround, 2 front presence and 2 rear presence, but the unit cannot output from the rear surround and rear presence at the same time.

So what I can do is have the surround back and rear presence speakers both connected and the current signal from the AVR will play sound out of whichever of these pair of speakers it needs to depending on the sound field used. Right?

Now, what I would really like is to be able to have a set up that uses them both at the same time. That is, the front 3, 2 surround, 2 surround back, 2 front presence and 2 rear presence - 7.2.4.
This unit is replacing an RX-V581.

The owner’s manual for the RX-V2085/V3085 seems a bit ambiguous in places like the advanced configurations regarding the RX-V2085, but says it is possible to connect up to 11 speakers by connecting an external amp (doesn’t say this is limited to the RX-V3085). To me it looks as though the RX-V2085 has the outputs, the RX-V581 has the inputs, so why couldn’t I connect them and build my super surround system to have speaker outputs for the presence speakers from the RX-V581 and the other 7 from the RX-2085?

The image on page 33 of the RX-V3085/RX-V2085 Owner's Manual says that it is only available with the RX-V3085, but I don’t understand why a 9.2 amp (RX-V2085) can’t power 7.2 and the RX-V581 the 4 presence speakers?

Isn’t it a power thing, rather than a signal thing? I understand that the 9.2 can only output power to the 9 speakers, but can’t it transmit the signal for both the rear presence and rear surround simultaneously? I know I am not an electrical engineer, so am completely aware it is very likely my understanding is completely flawed and am happy to be told as much.

I don’t want to start messing around with this without advice, and it’s by no means the end of the world if I only need to switch between 7.2.2 and 5.2.4, but could someone please let me know:
a) whether or not this would actually work or not, and
b) how to connect them. I assume I would have to set the RX-V581 to something like Direct or Passthrough and the signal for the presence speakers would transmit from the RX-V2085?

Thanks very much for reading and I do appreciate any help given; It could very likely stop me blowing up my brand new receiver…and myself!! 😃

RX-V2085

RX-V581 manual
 

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Okay, so not much going on here...
If anyone is interested, rather than what I had seen on a YouTube video, I set the two front speakers to output to the rx-v581 and set that to direct.
Super. Groovy. 😊
 
All you'd be doing is repurposing the RXV581 as an external amp. It wouldn't be ideal because of its pre amp stage and additional processing. Yes, you'd need to ensure that PURE DIRECT is always engage and you'd also need to leave the master volume always set where it was sett when you calibrated the setup.

There are those that do use 2 or more AV receivers to process the same source simultaneously, but this wouldn't technically be correct. Such setups are frankenstein in nature because neither AV receiver would know what the other is doing. If you want to do it properly then you'd need a single unit doing all the processing for all the channels.

You can play a game of kidoology that you've a 11 channel setup by using more than one AVR, but it isn't really an 11 channel setup depite there being 11 speakers.

You ideally want one unified processor processing all 11 channel, not 2 different processors working independently of one another.


There's a similar topic here:
 
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