I moved into a new house not long ago and have speakers in-wall speakers in my living room and master bedroom. I also have a home theater setup in my family room. So essentially I have 3 zones.
I want to be able to play music from ANY of the sources currently hooked up to my Onkyo amp in any/all of the 3 zones and be able to control the volume in each room independently (obviously).
I want to do this with my Onkyo amp as the "center of it all". I don't' want to invest a bunch of money in russound or other brand multi zone amps, I'm looking for a solution on the cheap. My Onkyo doesn't support 3 zones however...
Right now I have a second sony stereo amp with A&B speaker outputs. I'm running the pre-out from my Onkyo into the sony and that way I'm able to power all 3 zones (family room on the onkyo, living room on A output from the second amp and master bedroom for B output on the second amp). The problem with this is that my pre-amp output on the onkyo is variable, so in order to get reasonable volume in the remote zones, I have to CRANK the onkyo volume, there's no way for me to run "softly" in my family room and loud in the master bedroom (for example).
I do have a toslink digital optical output on my onkyo, I guess I could chain 3 amps together (one powering each zone) and run the digital out between them all - but then I have 3 $800 amps and that's not in the budget.
What am I missing? There's got to be a simpler way to do this. Is there by chance a cheap amp on the market that has optical OUTs? (I'd be willing to invest in say 2 more $200 amps). The only 2 ways I have to get sound out of my onkyo amp is either with the variable pre-out or the optical.
Suggestions? Solutions?
I want to be able to play music from ANY of the sources currently hooked up to my Onkyo amp in any/all of the 3 zones and be able to control the volume in each room independently (obviously).
I want to do this with my Onkyo amp as the "center of it all". I don't' want to invest a bunch of money in russound or other brand multi zone amps, I'm looking for a solution on the cheap. My Onkyo doesn't support 3 zones however...
Right now I have a second sony stereo amp with A&B speaker outputs. I'm running the pre-out from my Onkyo into the sony and that way I'm able to power all 3 zones (family room on the onkyo, living room on A output from the second amp and master bedroom for B output on the second amp). The problem with this is that my pre-amp output on the onkyo is variable, so in order to get reasonable volume in the remote zones, I have to CRANK the onkyo volume, there's no way for me to run "softly" in my family room and loud in the master bedroom (for example).
I do have a toslink digital optical output on my onkyo, I guess I could chain 3 amps together (one powering each zone) and run the digital out between them all - but then I have 3 $800 amps and that's not in the budget.
What am I missing? There's got to be a simpler way to do this. Is there by chance a cheap amp on the market that has optical OUTs? (I'd be willing to invest in say 2 more $200 amps). The only 2 ways I have to get sound out of my onkyo amp is either with the variable pre-out or the optical.
Suggestions? Solutions?