The "Official" Yamaha RX-V659 / HTR-5960 Thread! - Page 27

I have the same question as Eastmark.

I have a 659 powering my system. On zone 2 I have 4 pairs of speakers (3 indoors, and 1 outdoors) connected via a speaker selector.

I would like to get more sound outdoors. I currently have a pair of Sonance Mariner 52 on my deck, but my yard extends about 80-100 feet past the deck, so the sound diminishes as you go further back. On windy days, or when the neighbors are blasting their music, it is hard to hear ours.

I was thinking of hooking up an amp to the zone 2 preouts and moving the outdoor speakers from the selector box to the amp. I was looking at the Russound x75. Any comments on this amp, or other suggestions?

I was also looking at adding another pair of speakers at the back of the yard facing in, and connecting them to the Speaker B ports on the amp. Does this sound like a good idea, or does anyone have any other suggestions?

In reading your post, the first thing that comes to mind is simply too many zones to manage with one feed from the Amp.

You should seriously consider integrating the SONOS Wifi system into your AVR to provide easy connectivity, amplification, and complete wifi setup and remote control from any of the rooms you've identfied. The money you'll spend on new Amps will certainly be on a par with the cost of the SONOS system, but never provide the added functionality that SONOS will give you.

Check it out!

Good luck

The sound in all the other rooms is fine. We just turn them on occasionally for background music. Since I already have the cabling, I don't see a need to switch to Sonos for the other rooms.

My only concern at this point is improving the sound outdoors. The are many times we spend all day outside, so we have zone 2 (only outside speakers selected) on for several hours. I'm looking for an amp ($200) that can improve the quality of sound outdoors, and take some of the load off my receiver.

In addition to the Russound x75, I have looked at the Onkyo M282 and also just read about the Emotiva mini-X a-100. Since the 659 is rated at 100W, I'm not sure if any of these will do the job.

Hi there, new to the forum, am wondering if you can help with a quick question. I need to assign an optical output to the phono input but don't have the remote for the stereo. Any way to access the advance menus without a remote? Or should I look to pick one up if I can find it?

Thanks in advance...