Multi-Zone Audio

For the last couple of weeks we have been looking at receivers and HTIB’s and their capabilities and common misnomers.

I wanted to take some time to look at multi-zone audio since it is quite popular with our clients.

Here are some good rules to know when looking at multi-zone audio:

1) A Receiver is only meant to power as many speakers as it has channels. (i.e. a 5.1 receiver is meant to power 5 speakers and a 7.1 channel receiver is meant to power 7 speakers).

2) Speaker selectors should NOT be used on the “B Speaker” set or Zone 2 set of a receiver.

3) Receivers maximum power output is its MAX. Just because a 7.1 Receiver has 9 speaker connections doesn’t mean you should connect 9 speakers to it.

The receivers we carry in-store (for the most part, there are a couple magnolia exclusions like the Denon 3310 and above) are meant to drive only a single zone. Some receivers, like the Denon 3310 and above, have a smaller second internal amp for driving usually 2 speakers in another location.

Lets use the Yamaha 665 for this example. Its our lowest model receiver that provides us with zone-2 speaker connections. It is a 7.2 channel receiver which means it can handle 7 speakers. So if we connect up a 7.1 system to it, then we cannot connect up speakers to the zone-2 connections. If we connect a 5.1 system to this receiver then the receiver can handle 2 speakers connected to the zone-2 connections.

That brings us to speaker selectors. Whats the proper way to use them?

Speaker selectors are actually the worst way to do multi-zone audio. The reason being is because a receiver will output 90 watts per channel (Denon 790). When you use a speaker selector, it corrects the Ohm problem that occurs when connecting multiple speakers to two terminals. But, whatever is connected to the speaker selector still only gets 90 watts per channel. Keep in mind, every halving of wattage = halving of volume output. Thus 2 speakers = 90 watts each, 4 speakers = 45 watts each, 6 speakers = 30 watts each and 8 speakers = about 22 watts each. The more speakers you add, the more you have to turn the volume up on the receiver to maintain a certain level of sound. Thus, a speaker selector with 8 speakers attached to playing all at once will be only 33% as loud as just 2 speakers at the same volume level. Do people get away with hooking stuff up incorrectly? All the time. But as usual, doing so can cause the equipment to overheat and fail or cause a much shorter lifespan of the unit.

If you look on the back of the Yamaha 665, you’ll notice an RCA connection below Center channel speaker terminals that says “Zone 2 out”. The proper way to do more than 2 speakers in other zones is to run the Zone 2 out connection into an IN connection on a second stereo receiver (Yamaha 365 and Denon 397 work great for this). A Secondary receiver should handle another 3-4 sets of speakers (add another receiver every 3-4 sets of speakers, they can all be linked up through audio pass throughs).

We do carry receivers simply meant for putting audio out to multiple zones (Denon, Speakercraft, etc.).

I know this one was a little deeper but I wanted to help you out when helping customer’s get what they need.

As always any questions or comments, just let me know.