Multizone or not

[timfear]

I'm a simpleton. My wife gave me the very nice gift of a Sony STR-DN840 for my birthday. It's the nicest receiver I've ever had by far. It's a little odd to me that everything revolves around the television when I wanted it for sound but again, I'm a simpleton when it comes to these things.

Anyway, as I'm setting it up my wife says "and the guy from Best Buy said we can set up speakers on the patio and play it through this. I look it up and that looks like a no. So, now I'm spending countless hours trying to figure out if I should take this back and buy a different receiver. I've looked at every review in the price range and when I find one I think will work, I read user reviews that scare me off.

Considering we had nothing (really) before, I'm thinking of keeping this and finding another solution for the patio, etc. I'd love to have different music all over the house but not sure how feasible. But you guys are experts, what's your advice? I'd sure appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks,

 

[PSM1]

Zone 2 on most receivers in the price bracket you are in will only work with analogue sources so anything connected to the receiver via optical, coaxial or HDMI can not be output on the second zone. Second zone features on most AVRs is a bit of a box ticking exercise and not always the most user friendly of features. Using something like a Sonos may be a better option to get distributed sound around the house.

 

[timfear]

Awesome, thanks. I kind of figured that a seemingly substantial upgrade like that couldn't be done right at this price point, but needed someone who knows what they're talking about to confirm. Thanks