New home theater setup

Mills314

Gents, new to the forum and wanted to start off with a few light questions in regards to a new home theater set up that will be going along with my basement finishing project.

I have two separate rooms in my basement, one will be the home theater room, the other will be the pool room/bar. I have a Sony home theater system with 5.1 surround sound going in the home theater in one room and would like to be able to listen to it in the pool room as well.

What I am looking to do is run all of the 5.1 system in the home theater room and add some large speakers in the pool room by running the speaker wires from the receiver into the wall via banana plugs and a connection plate installed behind the entertainment center, then add some sort of a/b switch so that I can switch between the 5.1 in one room and the 2 speakers in the other room at the flip of a switch. Would this be to complicated? Or would it be easier to just upgrade my receiver to a 7.1 and run 5.1 in one room and add the 2 extra speakers in the other room then be able to control it all from the receiver?

I don't want to pigtail the speakers together due to losing power, and want the option to run only one room at a time. I also don't want to add a second receiver in the pool room because then I lose the MP3, SAT radio, and what not that will all be connected to my receiver.

Thanks in advance!

Andy

gregzoll

You really need a amp or receiver that does multi-room, not trying to use the A/V receiver to take the place of the proper equipment.

Mills314

So using a 7.1 receiver wouldn't work?

gregzoll

Again, you need the proper equipment. A 7.1 channel receiver will not work. Manufacturers have Multi-Room/multi-channel amps & receivers for what you are wanting to do. And yes, they can run in the thousands of dollars for good equipment.

Mills314

Thanks! I will look into it and go from there.

piste

I'm not totallly sure if its the same thing..but are you referring to receivers that have multi-zone capability? If so, they can be had for $500 or less...which is not to say you couldn't spend multiples of that...

tyhatts

7.1 wouldnt work for what you want to do.... 7.1 is just adding speakers to a 5.1 system.

You need a system that supplies 2.1 as well as the 5.1.... you will be able to swtich between the two inputs allowing you to switch between rooms.

Also, another option would be to find a cheap receiver for the 2 loud speakers... and have a seperate system

JPL

Many 7.1 capable Audio/Video receivers have a 'zone 2' capability built in - with the sacrifice of surround channels 6&7. You could use those for your bar - keep in mind those channels may only be 60 watts. You may need to use the pre-amp zone2 outputs with a larger power amp to get the sound output you want. This could be plan B after you test the 6&7 speaker outputs. Just be sure you spend enough to get pre-amp, as well as amplified 6&7.

superdave37

I have all Yamaha receivers and I believe most have an A/B switch. Meaning 5.1 is your A, then a second stereo set would be B in the pool room.

C_J_GO

I have a Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K which has a zone 2 that allows you to listen to any input even if a different input is being listened to in zone 1. I do agree with this review that the manual is confusing but once I have it setup I haven't had to mess with it.