ZONE 2 or Preout ??

[Mike Mcsweeney]

I understand preouts will only play the same as your listening source, where zone 2 allows you to select a different source.

But can I use a zone2 exactly as I am familiar with as preouts? I want an avr with preouts to drive a NAD amp for fronts all the time and the only source I want to listen to. If I buy an avr that only has zone2 and no preouts, will that be ok?

[Audio_ELF]

I doubt it...

 

The zone 2 will take the multi-channel and have to "remix" it into a 2 channel otherwise Zone two (when watching a movie for example) would have no dialogue.

 

Also the volume will unlikely be sync'd between the main outputs and zone 2; so when you turned the volume of the AVR down you'd also have to turn zone 2 down.

 

Finally a lot of AVRs will only output to zone two analogue sources.

 

So in summary... Hell no they're not going to serve the same function!

[Mike Mcsweeney]

I doubt it...

 

The zone 2 will take the multi-channel and have to "remix" it into a 2 channel otherwise Zone two (when watching a movie for example) would have no dialogue.

 

Also the volume will unlikely be sync'd between the main outputs and zone 2; so when you turned the volume of the AVR down you'd also have to turn zone 2 down.

 

Finally a lot of AVRs will only output to zone two analogue sources.

 

So in summary... Hell no they're not going to serve the same function!

 

Thanks...before I read your reply, I decided to try for myself....and the first thing I discovered, like you said is that I can't control the volume of zone 2 from the avr...I won't even bother trying multi-chan then... hmmm...back to the drawing board. I want to play with multi channel, but I want the fronts driven by my NAD. So if I find a 5.1 AVR that has preouts and HDMI 1.3 or higher then can I use the preouts to my nad for the effect I am looking for?