Multi Zone Set up help

I found the information on page 71 in your owners manual. First of all is the amplifier you want to use for the outdoor speakers a dedicated amp or another receiver with its own volume control? Either way, the amp needs to be hooked to the zone 2 analogue out jacks. Then your speakers will be connected into the back of the zone 2 amplifier via speaker wire. If this is a dedicated amp you will need to set the Pioneers volume control to variable in the set up menu. It will then be configured as a pre amp and the volume will be controlled in zone 1 for zone2. If your zone 2 amplifier is a receiver you need to set the Pioneer zone 2 to fixed. You would control the volume in zone 2 in zone 2. Take a look at the manual. It is fairly easy. You can download the manual if you don't have one. Good luck. If you have more questions I will try to help.

It sounds like you have it. Remember to select variable for the volume in the set up menu. If you have it on fixed and turn things on the dedicated amp could blow your speakers because it will be very loud.Zone 2 will usually only take analogue sources. So if your sources in zone 1 are hooked up via a digital cable, optical, digital coax, or hdmi. You will also have to run an analogue rca so you can send them to zone 2. I have several of my devices hooked up twice so I can send them to zone 2 and 3. Many devices have both types of outputs but some do not.

Secret Squirrel, So your saying after working hard and spending money to buy devices with HDMI output to greatly reduce the wiring. So on the Pioneer VSX-1020-K I must hook up analog left and right audio cables from say the cable box or DVD in order to send even the sound to Zone 2? I also have noticed that none of the audio from HDMI sources can be sent to Zone 2. Why in the world with all this engineering in the VSX-1020-K they would not simply route the audio even from HDMI sources as analog to zone 2?

Also I tried to send tuner to Main and Zone 2 at the same time, no luck. This Zone 2 thing sounded good, but it busted as far is I can tell.

The issue about not being able to send digital sources to zone 2 or 3 is common in most receivers. Im not sure of any that send digital to zone 2 or 3 but they might be out there. I just wanted to give the OP the heads up on this as he may want to read the Pioneer manual to be 100% sure that this applies to his receiver. Im pretty sure it does apply. As for you sending the tuner function to both zones I can't say why it is not working properly. It seems that it should be working fine. Especially if it's just an FM radio station. I think as time goes on companies will be putting DA converters for zone 2 and 3 in receivers more often because the trend looks like many companies will be doing away with much of the analogue inputs and outputs on equipment. So they will have to do something.

Surprised to find this topic because I, too, have this issue. I was using the vsx-1020 as a multi-zone audio receiver. I was able to send Internet Radio, and other input sources to zone 2. I decided to hook up a GoogleTV Cortex A-8 media player to one of the hdmi inputs on the vsx-1020. If you don't know what this looks like, it almost looks like a USB memory stick, but it happens to be an Android device and instead of plugging into a usb port, it plugs into an hdmi port. With this set up, I can play my Google Music library through the GoogleTV adapter. The only problem: I can't play the music on zone 2 because I can't switch zone 2 to the HDMI port. I only need audio from the hdmi port and am disappointed that the receiver has not considered this kind of use case. I am able to reconfigure the reciever as a Speaker A/B system. It's unfortunate though because a Multi-Zone setup is much more versatile then an A/B setup. If anyone knows better, I'm open to suggestions.

Rich

good info,It's unfortunate though because a Multi-Zone setup is much more versatile then an A/B setup. If anyone knows better,thanks