New Amp needed

S

Steve76

Guest
Hi All,

I am relatively new to the world of home cinema seperates. I am a brit living in the US currently and am about to move into a home with 6.1 surround built in. I a little lost as to what to look for in an amp and wondered if you could ratify/reject the following decision.

I am currently taken with the Yamaha RX-V1500.

I am slightly confused at how I would wire my setup though as I only have 6.1 speakers. I looked at the yamahas manual online and it only confused me more!

I also have more rooms in the home with built in speakers and I wondering if I could use the yamahas amp'd zone 2 to feed into a speaker selector and power speakers on the patio, living room and dining room from it - would this work?

Advice, help and expertise wanted. Let me know what you think.

Thanks
Steve
 
Steve76 said:
Hi All,

I am relatively new to the world of home cinema seperates. I am a brit living in the US currently and am about to move into a home with 6.1 surround built in. I a little lost as to what to look for in an amp and wondered if you could ratify/reject the following decision.

I am currently taken with the Yamaha RX-V1500.

I am slightly confused at how I would wire my setup though as I only have 6.1 speakers. I looked at the yamahas manual online and it only confused me more!
When you say "6.1 surround built in" I assume you mean in-wall/in-ceiling speakers and their wiring only.
If that's correct and the speakers are wired to a central location, typically where you want to place your surround sound equipment, then it should be no problem to connect an AV amp/receiver like the mentioned Yamaha, which can drive up to 7 speakers, excluding the proprietary front effect channels.
Simply put, connect the wires from the 6 speakers to the respective outputs of the Yamaha (omit one of the surround back outputs since you only have 6 speakers) and you are set.

I also have more rooms in the home with built in speakers and I wondering if I could use the yamahas amp'd zone 2 to feed into a speaker selector and power speakers on the patio, living room and dining room from it - would this work?

Advice, help and expertise wanted. Let me know what you think.

Thanks
Steve
A 2nd (and 3rd) zone usually requires the use of a dedicated (stereo) power amp, the Yamaha would act as a controller only, i.e. source and volume selection.
But the Yamaha RX-V1500 has a special feature that allows you to assign two of it's internal power amplification stages to Zone 2, thus you wouldn't need an additional / external power amp; however when using this function Zone 1 would only work in a 5.1 configuration.
Which option to choose and how to wire this up depends on the speaker wiring in your house, without more details it's difficult to give more specific advise.
 
Thanks for the very detailed response I appreciate your help.

You are right the 6.1 speaker set up is in ceiling/wall. The speakers are already there so all i need is the amp/sources. All the speakers return to a central location as you mention. I have 2 speakers on my patio, 2 in my living room, 1 in my master bedroom and also a stub out for rock speakers in the yard.

I am looking for the simplest setup that will allow me to watch movies and allows someone else to listen to another source in another area. My speaker guy suggest buying one surround sound amp and one regular amp/tuner to be able to setup two distinct zones. I thought there may be a better option out there, but have very little expertise in this area.

Any suggestions based on the updated information?

Appreciate the assistance.
 
Steve76 said:
Thanks for the very detailed response I appreciate your help.

You are right the 6.1 speaker set up is in ceiling/wall. The speakers are already there so all i need is the amp/sources. All the speakers return to a central location as you mention. I have 2 speakers on my patio, 2 in my living room, 1 in my master bedroom and also a stub out for rock speakers in the yard.
Do you want to listen to different sources on the patio, the living room and the other places or just one source?

I am looking for the simplest setup that will allow me to watch movies and allows someone else to listen to another source in another area. My speaker guy suggest buying one surround sound amp and one regular amp/tuner to be able to setup two distinct zones. I thought there may be a better option out there, but have very little expertise in this area.

Any suggestions based on the updated information?

Appreciate the assistance.
If it's just movies and the same source for all the other areas then the Yamaha, in combination with a dedicated multi-channel power amp is IMHO the way to go. The multi-channel power amp drives all the speakers in the other areas, it's number of channels would be matched to the number of speakers you want to drive.
In fact you could use the multi-channel power amp for Zone 2 only or even wire it to serve Zone 2 and 3.
 
Reiner,

I appreciate your responses.

I would like to be able to listen to multiple sources. By this I think there are two options. First one is the ability to listen to movies in the TV area and one other source for the rest of the house. Second option is to allow multiple sources around the whole house.

I am more than happy with the ability to have 3 zones with the ability to have different sources running to each. I could just lump some of the distinct locations together.

When you say a power amp to power the other zones - can you help me understand this and also what products are out there to fulfill this need? I would like to be able to use the Yamaha for the source control (zone 2 and zone 3) and then a power amp (can I use just one for both of the secondary zones?)

Also with the zone 2 piece - since I have 6.1 speakers not 7.1 will the use of zone 2 affect my movie watching speaker set up?

Do you know where I should connect my rear centre speaker to the unit - it isnt obvious from the back panel?
 
Steve76 said:
Reiner,

I appreciate your responses.
My pleasure. :)

I would like to be able to listen to multiple sources. By this I think there are two options. First one is the ability to listen to movies in the TV area and one other source for the rest of the house. Second option is to allow multiple sources around the whole house.

I am more than happy with the ability to have 3 zones with the ability to have different sources running to each. I could just lump some of the distinct locations together.
Both is no problem, in fact since the Yamaha does offer 3 zones I would make use of that.

When you say a power amp to power the other zones - can you help me understand this and also what products are out there to fulfill this need?
Good value-for-money power amps are made by Rotel. See here for an overview: Rotel Power Amplifiers

As you can see from the Rotel site they have models with 5, 6 and 8 channels. Of course there are other manufacturers that make power amps, too. 7-channel versions are also available.

I would like to be able to use the Yamaha for the source control (zone 2 and zone 3) and then a power amp (can I use just one for both of the secondary zones?)
You can use the Yamaha for source controls and one power amp for both zones as long as that power amp has a sufficient number of channels for all speakers in Zone 2 and 3; the allocation of the available channels to Zone 2 and 3 merely depends on how you wire it up (how it's connected to the Yamaha).

Also with the zone 2 piece - since I have 6.1 speakers not 7.1 will the use of zone 2 affect my movie watching speaker set up?
If you drive Zone 2 from an external power amplifier your movie setup will not be affected.

Do you know where I should connect my rear centre speaker to the unit - it isnt obvious from the back panel?
You connect it to the surround back 'single' connector that you can find at the lower row of the big speaker terminals.
 
Reiner,

I feel like i am constanly picking your brains - but you are so good at this stuff!

OK, so I have looked at the Rotel stuff and it looks great - only problem is it blows my budget rather harshly.

I have been looking at my setup. All wires terminate in the same spot and are mostly volume control return wires, the volume control itself distributes the signal to the physical speakers. This means I have 4 return wires (Patio, Living, Bedroom and outdoor audio stub). I think I would like to put a few of these locations together and simply have a 3 zone setup (Outdoor, Indoor and Surround).

Is there a way to do this type of setup cheaply? I wonder if I could double up some of the connections from a cheaper power amp?

Let me know what you think? I would ideally like to spend somewhere in the region of $200 on top of the Yamaha

Thanks
Steve
 
I am afraid you can't do without a power amp for Zone 2 (Indoor) and 3 (Outdoor) but you could connect 2 wires each in parallel (out of the 4) so that you only require a 2-channel (stereo) power amp. In fact if the amp has A & B terminals the connection is even easier: 4 wires, 4 connection points.

If budget is an issue you may consider getting a 2nd hand unit or use an old stereo amp (if you have one lying around).
 

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