9 speaker ceiling setup questions!

[Dim]

Hi guys! It's been many years since I've been on here, so I'm glad to see the community is still going strong. 

 

I'm looking for some advice on a subject I know absolutely nothing about! I bought a house recently and there are speakers with relevant cables all throughout. 

 

There are 5 speakers in the living room, 2 in the master bedroom and 2 out in the patio. There is a central speaker cable source for all 9 cables (none of which are labelled, cheers previous owners...). It also includes two HDMI cables and two sub cables. One sub and one HDMI goes to each of the mounted TV stations in the living and bedroom. 

 

I'm basically after what amp (or two, if need be) I can use to connect all of these to a central source. I. E. I want 5.1 surround in the living, 2.1 surround in the bedroom and 2 whatever speakers in the patio, which I presume is a 9.2 three-zone amp with two subs in each of the rooms. I'm guessing both of these would use HDMI ARC... 

 

Please let me know if I'm off base with my assumptions - I'm a software consultant, this is really not an area I have expertise with... 

 

Any ideas on amps I can use to suit this purpose as well as recommendations on subs would be great! I do have a bit of a budget ($2000 - 3000 AUD)... I also believe there's a bit of a shortage of solid amps in Australia at the moment but if you can provide any advice on what would work that would be hugely helpful. 

 

Thanks! 

[johnt]

I wouldn't buy a complicated, and very expensive, three zone receiver for this setup. I would purchase a dedicated receiver for your living room, and then an entry level receiver with 2 zone (it's very common) for your other rooms. The biggest reason I would split up the duties is because it gets very complicated to make things work. Idk if you have a wife, but she won't appreciate all the button clicking to get something to work in the living room. It sounds like ARC is the only way to go for these... it's going to be very annoying when trying to troubleshoot or setup something from your bedroom when the receiver is in your living room. But it should be fine when everything is setup and working.

 

Also, I would not bother with a subwoofer in a bedroom.

[Dim]

1 hour ago, johnt said:

Info

Thanks for the advice man! I actually made the wrong assumption and looked more properly - there is no subwoofer cable anywhere, there is only an optical capable and HDMI from the bedroom to the receiver point. 

 

I might have to put some more thought into this; I don't hugely need the patio ones. 

 

Can I go a 7-speaker with HDMI ARC to the 5 in the living room and with optical to the 2 in the bedroom? Or would that require faffing about with the buttons?

 

All sound in both instances would go through the TV; the bedroom one uses chromecast though... Damn, that changes things again doesn't it. Means I need ARC there too which I wouldn't have because it's in the... Dammit. 

 

Thanks for the help man! Maybe I just go with a 5.1 for the living room for now

 

Any ETA on surround sound becoming less involved in the future

[johnt]

10 hours ago, Dim said:

Any ETA on surround sound becoming less involved in the future

lol I wish this was the case!

 

You're probably going to be faffing around when using multiple zones. Most of the time the second zone has separate speaker terminals or, like you mentioned, the receiver will be a 7.1 but only 5.1 will be used for zone 1 and the other two channels for zone 2. It all depends on the receiver. You might be able to find a good unit that can always set a certain input to a certain zone. Otherwise you're going to have surround sound in your living room and tv speakers in your bedroom lol

 

You will also need to make sure CEC is working in addition to ARC, or you will have to turn on your receiver manually before heading to your bedroom to watch tv (that's why it's important for the receiver to know which zone it has to turn on).

 

I think it's doable. You are going to feel very accomplished if you can get it setup and working properly. The nice part is the manufacturers put a lot of information and screenshots in their instruction manuals. Do your research before you buy one!

 

Take a look at the Denon x series. They usually put a lot of features in these receivers for relatively fair prices. The x1700 is a good starter model that can do dual zone. The higher up models have more inputs and features and what not, but you might not need all that. The x3000 and x4000 series are considered prosumer models, and the higher models are a waste of money in my humble opinion.

[Dim]

29 minutes ago, johnt said:

Info

Thanks for the info man - basically what I've found is someone willing to sell a Yamaha RXA3080 for $2400 AUD

 

The unit is used but the seller is reputable (a local A/V small business who uses the unit personally) 

 

This has 3 zones 9 channels and seems to tick every box I need simultaneously.

 

I've got him coming around next Wednesday to install  - would be awesome if it's all good for $2400. It is on the upper end of my budget but seems like a good solution. 

 

The only slightly inconvenient part is having to change the inputs via the receiver... We'll see how we go! 

[johnt]

9 hours ago, Dim said:

Thanks for the info man - basically what I've found is someone willing to sell a Yamaha RXA3080 for $2400 AUD

Whew that's not a cheapo receiver at all. It's Yamaha's high end prosumer model. I'm a bit jealous! I checked the specs and some details, looks like it will do exactly what you're looking for. Good find!

 

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-ZrfamANjg1K/p_022RXA3080/Yamaha-AVENTAGE-RX-A3080.html

[cragger89]

Good multizone amplifiers are not cheap. This will be a project done by someone who wanted the project, or they had money to throw at having everything "tidy" in the bedroom, then they realised "ooh, we can do the patio, too!" - I'd wager.

 

I'd still go with separate receivers as previously suggested. My Denon amp which now has a dead front left amplified channel is a 2 zone amp, but you could only use analogue audio inputs for the second zone. If I wanted to listen to what was running in the main lounge elsewhere and it was an HDMI, coaxial or optical input source, no dice.

 

I now use a slimline marantz av amplifier in my lounge and a separate 1u sized amp to drive kitchen/bathroom ceiling speakers. It's a JBL 2 zone mixer/amp which has RJ45 sockets to connect wall mounted volume plates. Sources are Chromecast audio adapters and a Raspberry Pi which has software on it to work as an Airplay audio receiver. This works WAY better for music control in the bathroom and kitchen than trying to get one AV amplifier to do everything.

 

Watch Linus' videos on his home theatre since the move to show how frustrating the limitations of an additional zone actually is - it seems like a great idea, but the limitations very quickly make it not worth bothering with for me.

[Dim]

20 hours ago, cragger89 said:

Good multizone amplifiers are not cheap. This will be a project done by someone who wanted the project, or they had money to throw at having everything "tidy" in the bedroom, then they realised "ooh, we can do the patio, too!" - I'd wager.

 

I'd still go with separate receivers as previously suggested. My Denon amp which now has a dead front left amplified channel is a 2 zone amp, but you could only use analogue audio inputs for the second zone. If I wanted to listen to what was running in the main lounge elsewhere and it was an HDMI, coaxial or optical input source, no dice.

 

I now use a slimline marantz av amplifier in my lounge and a separate 1u sized amp to drive kitchen/bathroom ceiling speakers. It's a JBL 2 zone mixer/amp which has RJ45 sockets to connect wall mounted volume plates. Sources are Chromecast audio adapters and a Raspberry Pi which has software on it to work as an Airplay audio receiver. This works WAY better for music control in the bathroom and kitchen than trying to get one AV amplifier to do everything.

 

Watch Linus' videos on his home theatre since the move to show how frustrating the limitations of an additional zone actually is - it seems like a great idea, but the limitations very quickly make it not worth bothering with for me.

To give an update on this one, the receiver (Yamaha RX-A3080) is in and functional and I'm super happy with the result. I'm not an audiophile or anything like that so all this shit is new and exciting to me

 

Now I can play games and watch movies in the living room with 5.0 (for now) surround which feels much better, as well as listen to audiobooks in the master bedroom without Chromecast Spotify splash screen on the TV (what I've been dealing with), as well as 'Party Mode' with Yamaha MusicCast to play Spotify all throughout the house and choose the volume levels per zone. The TV also look super clean with zero wires or devices...

The PS5 can now boot up the receiver and auto-set to "9ch surround", and the receiver can also boot up the PS5. Fucking wild.

 

The only caveat is that the HDMI and Optical cables are dead from the source to the master bedroom, so I ended up having to give up on that.

It actually would not have mattered anyway as my TV in the bedroom does not have an optical or HDMI ARC input - go figure.

 

We'll see if I have any problems in future, but so far it's looking/sounding 10/10.

[sm1th5]

On 8/1/2022 at 3:14 AM, johnt said:

I would not bother with a subwoofer in a bedroom

Disagree as I use one myself and I couldn't live without it!

[cmndr]

As hinted at, multi-zone receivers are stupidly expensive.

You'd likely be better off with something like a dual zone AVR, a chromecast and two Nest Audio speakers in stereo mode.

In that instance all you really need to do is cast to the combined speaker group and you're off to the races. This is what I did at my father's place.

 

This will cost around $700ish USD instead of $1500-2000ish USD