[Cyrusis]

Hey guys!


So basically I have 5 rooms in my household with speakers in my ceilings and all of the wiring leads out from my home theater room. My intention is to have the Denon AVR-3312CI be my centralized AVR for home theater and a multi-zone controllor for the rest of my rooms. Now I was suggested this AVR and told it will be perfectly fine for what I need.


The AVR specs list it as being just a 3 zone reciever so I'm a little confused how the wiring would work. And if the AVR can truly do all my rooms. I used the search function to seek out my answer and all I came across are potential speaker switches? Is this what is needed to created 6 zones?


And when video is being played can only a single zone operate at any given time (my main home theater room). And if using a speaker switch is necessary, does it hurt the ohm rating or power level of the speakers?


Thanks plenty guys! I hope someone can help me resolve this!

 

[Cyrusis]

Okay!


So I found this little tidbit about the AVR:

c. Whole House Audio: If you have a Zone 2 model (1712 or higher) and want to send the "same" audio to more than just one extra room, you can connect a multi zone impedance matching speaker selector (eg. 4 zone selector) to the Surr Back/Amp Assign speaker posts. If adding more than 2 additional rooms, however, you should consider an AVR model that has Zone 2 preouts (CI models only) such that a seperate 2CH amp can run the whole house speakers so then you would connect the speaker selector to the external amp.


I'm not understand the zone 2 preout ability entirely, if I connect the preout on the 3312CI (RCA stereo audio?) to a seperate 2ch receiver, don't 2ch receivers only allow for one set of speaker wire to be plugged in?


Thanks!

 

[jdsmoothie]

In order to get stereo audio to more than just 1 extra room, you're going to need an impedance matching speaker selector (6 or 8 zone in your case). You would connect a 2Ch amp to the Zone 2 preouts and then connect the speaker selector to the 2CH amp and then the wiring from the 6 rooms to the speaker selector. You can have an independent source playing to the additional room speakers as long as it's PCM 2.0 via optical/digital coax or analog as HDMI sources won't go to Zone 2. If you wanted a 3rd independent source going to some of those rooms, you would need another 2CH amp as for that Zone as well.


For more information on your 3312CI, feel free to join us in the XX12 Owner's thread where you found that information.

 

[M Code]

One can use an external multi-zone speaker selector however most amplifiers within a 7.1 AVR do not work well with these...


If you have 5 different Zones, I would suggest considering an external multi-zone amplifier such as available from SpeakerCraft such as their BB1235..

Plus use impedance matching speaker volume controls (ASM17377) also available from SpeakerCraft. There are less expensive ways to do this but if you want better performance and longer trouble free operation. Unfortunately today the amplifiers within a 7.1 AVR lack headroom and adequate power supply capacity, unless the AVR is a higher end end one selling for an SRP > $2K..


Just my $0.02...