On September 29, 2006 at 10:34, johnsfine said...
I don't have a decent understanding of what "Zone" means
to these devices. I would have expected more commands
to be in common across zones. A few commands seem to
be, but most commands are documented for only one zone.
Commands 96-105 are documented only for Zone 3. Commands
550-554 are documented only for Zone 1. Is that inherent
in the meanings of the commands? What happens if you
give a command for a different zone than it was documented
for?
Thanks John for the codes!!!
Regarding the term "Zone" as it refers to Denon receivers. Each zone is a independent stereo preamp (and sometimes speaker level) output for audio distribution with its own power, source selection and volume/mute commands. Some units have only two zones and others have three or four. The 5805 posseses additional zone 2 setting commands because it can run a sepatate multi-channel home theater.
Where this gets a bit confusing is that some of the commands in the kaseikyo format are supposedly not zone specific despite the fact that they possess a Genre2 code that would suggest otherwise.. They deal largely with shuttle control and navigation of the newer iPod, Network, USB and XM radio features. The unfortunate reality is that they are married to zone 1. For example, this would mean that if you were listening to a network audio playlist from you computer hard drive in zone 3 using an AVR 4306, you would not be able to control the features of the network audio (presets, track advance, etc...) unless zone 1 is on. If zone 1 is off ,control of the features for iPod, Network audio, USB audio and XM radio are disabled. This effectively renders these features useless when using the piece as a distributed audio hub. Denon did make a feable attempt to provide a few control options for these features independent of the power status of zone 1 by allowing the user to "reassign" in the setup menu the tuner preset bank "G1 through G8" for iPod/Network/USB play and pause controls. I gave Denon and earful at Cedia regarding this issue!
So....... You are mostly correct in your assumption about the Genre2 code:
1000 = zone 1
1100 = zone 2
1010 = zone 3 (3806, 4306, 4806, 5805 only)
1110 = zone 4 (5805 only)
You will find many more codes for zone 1 because the iPod/Network/USB control features are linked to zone 1.
The other zones are largely relegated to power, source and volume commands.
The 5805 has many additional zone 2 codes for multi channel settings. The same settings for zone 1 are in the sharp format.
The codes No.96-105 for the AVR2807 that I had requested in my last post are for XM channel input numbers 0-9. They do not appear to be zone specific as documented by Denon despite the Genre2 1010 designation which would indicate zone 3. I suspect that they are likely married to zone 1.
My theory here is that Denon started with good intentions of organization but will slowly confuse the situation as they add more features to their line.
Thanks again John,
Troy
