Question about multi-channel amplifiers

I used a cheap Sony 7.1 receiver at my office and put 8 speakers across 3 zones using some in-wall impedance matching volume controls. Works like a charm for me. Sounds great too. The limitation is you have to listen to the same source in all zones.

HTD.com also sells some whole house kits starting around $350. Might be worth a look unless you already have some equipment.

If you are running the same sound source to all speakers than you just need one amp and impedance matching volume controls for each pair of room speakers.

I got the sony str-dg710 from crutchfield scratch and dent for reference. It has a multi-channel stereo output mode. That is what it is called on that receiver. I'm not sure if it's a universal thing. I would imagine that some receivers don't have that option.

My resonse was to your question about expensive multi-channel amps. You don't need a multi-channel amp if all the speakers are playing the same source, just a single dedicated stereo amp, which is not that expensive (see http://www.amazon.com/Pyle-2x75W-Stereo-Power-Amplifier/dp/B001P2R1RW/ref=pd_cp_e_2 for example).

I had a similar situation and ended up buying a "cheap" Sherwood receiver to drive the speakers in other rooms rather than driving them from the surround sound receiver in our living room. The Sherwood is available at Radio Shack and other places. I bought several Y audio splitter cables and put them on the outputs of my CD player and set top box and ran them into the inputs of the Sherwood, along with a cable to plug an ipod into. That way one family member could be watching and listening to television while the CD player was playing music to the rest of the house. You may not even need the Y cables if your other components have an unused analog audio output.

If you truly want single source then the Pyle amplifier is a good deal -- its a basic amplifier, I have one and its only fault is that the blue LEDs are a bit too bright!

From the prior posts it wasn't clear if you were going to have impedence matching volume controls at each location or any sort of speaker selector/distribution mechanism such as the HTD SS81. These do give you more flexibility in wiring and controlling sound levels.

Crutchfield has some good info on using an old receiver to power the second zone of a primary receiver, with some details on impedance matching.

Wait - no, they don't anymore. They want you to buy a dedicated multichannel amp. Go figure.

You can use an old AVR to power zone 2 out of the primary receiver, using impedance matching volume controls or an impedance matching speaker selector box.

You run the line-level output of zone 2 into the second receiver, then connect the speaker output to a connecting block, and then onto the impedance matched volume controls.

You can use any old receiver - check Craigslist, ~$50.

What about connecting line level out to 2nd receiver and then use front LR to one room (say kitchen) and rear LR to another room (say bedroom)

Would that work? I assume the 2nd receiver should be outputting in stereo mode and not 5.1.

That should work as long as you can tell the receiver to have the same sound coming out of the 'front' and 'rear' outputs. Look in the AVR manual.

Someone with more knowledge may chime in, but you could probably drive 2 pairs of speakers from a single speaker output. Depends on the speakers (4 vs. 8 ohm) and the AVR.

I have a similar situation. I want to use the second receiver to power three rooms; I already have impedance matching volume controls, the rooms are small (about 300 square fee each) and this is going to be only music. So here are my questions:
1. Can I use a two channel reciever and simply run three speakers sharing the two channels? I recognize I'll lose power by running the three.
2. Some of the two channel amps have an A/B speaker selection option. Can I hook one set of speakers to the "A" speakers and the other two sets of speakers to the "B"? If so, how is the power distributed (for example, if it's a 100 watts per channel amp, is that power distributed evenly to the "A" and "B" Speakers, and then divided in half again when I hook up two pairs to B???
3. Is a speaker connecting block absolutely necessary? Could you simply connect two pairs of speakers directly into the receiver?

thanks,
Ed