# recievers



## athoricht (Jun 19, 2012)

I have recently remodelled my house and purchased a surround sound system for the living room. As well I have placed 2 additional speakers in the livingroom, kitchen, master bedroom and our outdoor deck for a total of 13 speakers. I have hooked up the 5 of the six surround sound speakers to the reciever that came with the system in the living room. Everything works fine.
I thought I could attach my additional speakers to the supplied reciever but the reciever that came with the surround sound system will only take 7 speakers. The reciever is a Sony 7.1 ch AV STR-DH520. It has 100w x 7, 4 HDMI inputs. I was told that I needed an additional Reciver for the additional speakers. One that can handle 4 pairs of speakers. I was also told that there are other things i can purchase and use to hook everything up together. I don't know what they are. I don't even know if I also need an amplifier. My house is only 1300 sq. ft. and all the speakers are built into the ceilings with the exception of the pair on the deck.
Does anyone have a simple and possibly inexpensive solution to my problem?


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## phreak (Aug 16, 2010)

Your Sony does not have Pre-outs or Zone 2, so it can not be used to hook up all your 13 speakers (not by any method that is advisable), and it is not powerful enough to run all of them anyway. But of course we will help you find your best solution. How many watts and Ohms for your in ceiling speakers, and do you have volume controls in each room? Also, how do you connect to the speakers? Is there a bundle of 8 speaker wires in a closet somewhere?


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## wgmontgomery (Jun 9, 2011)

You _may_ be able to run the other speakers off of an impedance protected speaker selector, but you best bet would be an additional stereo receiver to run the other speakers. As asked above, are there any volume controls, and how are they wired? Also, why are there 13 other speakers? You usually find speakers in pairs.


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## rab-byte (Feb 1, 2011)

wgmontgomery said:


> You may be able to run the other speakers off of an impedance protected speaker selector, but you best bet would be an additional stereo receiver to run the other speakers. As asked above, are there any volume controls, and how are they wired? Also, why are there 13 other speakers? You usually find speakers in pairs.


My guess would be 5.1 + the 3 pairs for a total of 13. 

That is way too much load for this AVR IMO. 

I would suggest getting an AVR with a zone2 out. You could then run a zone amp to a speaker selector with volume control. Russound and Niles both make a good zone amp and Pioneer has some good entry level AVRs with preamp out.


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## phycomp (Jun 19, 2012)

If you can get a digital output from your Sony Receiver, then Sonos Connect amplifiers (one per pair of speakers) would be a good solution.


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## wgmontgomery (Jun 9, 2011)

rab-byte said:


> My guess would be 5.1 + the 3 pairs for a total of 13.
> 
> That is way too much load for this AVR IMO.
> 
> I would suggest getting an AVR with a zone2 out. You could then run a zone amp to a speaker selector with volume control. Russound and Niles both make a good zone amp and Pioneer has some good entry level AVRs with preamp out.


I thought that there were 13 other speakers aside from the HT speakers, but perhaps I misunderstood the post. I also agree that driving 13 speakers may be a bit much even with an impedance protected speaker selector. A separate stereo receiver with an impedance protected speaker selector would probably be the best bet; record out could be used _from_ the main AVR _to_ the stereo receiver for some sources.

I think that a bit more info is still needed; for example, are there any volume controls and how are the speakers wired. I've seen some crazy things in my days, so I try not to take too much for granted. :dontknow:


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## wgmontgomery (Jun 9, 2011)

"... a total of 13 speakers." I believe that you are correct; 5 speakers for HT and 8 more for zone 2.


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## athoricht (Jun 19, 2012)

All the wires go to the rear of my entertainment center cabinet. I don't know how many ohms the speakers are. I do not have volume controls in each room/ area. I figured that would be part of the next item I purchase. I have speaker wire( blue outer cover) going from each speaker to the rear of the entertainment center. That's it.


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## athoricht (Jun 19, 2012)

Blue covered speaker wire. There are 5 speakers for the surround sound, I left one out because i was thinking that a bar type speaker would be good under the tv, but I haven't gotten that far yet, and the 4 other pairs that need to be hooked up are only for house music.


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## athoricht (Jun 19, 2012)

Blue coated speaker wire. No volume controls.


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## athoricht (Jun 19, 2012)

thank you.


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