I have a project that we quoted and the budget is limited for the first phase.

Since we are going to use 2 Denon 2808 receivers, for two home theater rooms (both housed in the same rack, I figure we can use the extra zones from these receivers to send audio sources to 4 other zones for audio distribution.

At this time we will just be adding XM radio as well as an iport for the audio sources.

I want to limit the wall warts to a single gang in the various zone rooms for volume and source selection so the plan was to use an RK1-8. This way I can use two buttons for volume and the others for source selection/Presets.

I can use the back surrounds amp on zone2 and feed and control the volume on the denon for then 2 of the zones ( 1 room per each of these zones).

I then have 2 more zones.
One zone will have three rooms (1st floor) w/ individual volume control
Other zone will have two rooms/areas (Outdoors) w/ individual volume control.

To keep the wall warts to one I will need an external mulltiroom amp that will allow you me to control volume as well utilizing the RK1-8. Any thoughts.

Sonance makes an amp with RS232 control of volume and power. Do a search in these forums. It was mentioned a few times in the last month or so.

Think its a 675 or 875 or something.

I looked it up I believe its the 875D. 75 wats per channel / 8 channels.

One of these may be ok for the 3 rooms in the one zone but then I would only use 1/2 of a second one. Don't know if there are other options out there as well.

Also Marantz ZS5300,
[Link: us.marantz.com]

What you are doing sounds like a very bad idea. Its not that it cant be done, its should it be done!

Ease of use and functionality you are screwing your customer.

Why?

As long as the second zone outputs of your denon receivers correspond well with the other rooms they will drive it is not really a bad idea, however, it is a bit wacky if you are trying to link the two receivers so that you can share all sources. You can make one system the hub system for your Distributed audio which can be fed by the second and third zone outputs. This way all control and equipment is located at one place. if you were to divide four extra zones over two receivers and link them together, your control system programming would have to be fairly complex to make the operation seem simple to the client and well... it would just be wacky... something you could do just because you could and not because it should. Now, if you are looking to set up two independent 2 or 3 zone systems then no problem.

If you want four zones, why not just make them subzones of one or two zone outputs? The Sonance 875D works very well and will run 8 channels (4 pair) with volume, mute, on/off, and BBE control.

I guess I should clarify.

All of the equipment will be in a rack. Basically we have two receivers these are used to drive the video for the two zones. Customer is more interested in video than audio.

I won't get into the video since its not important here.

As far as audio sources (ones that will be utilized for the mutliroom audio system) these will initially be an XM tuner and an Iport and each of the receivers tuners.

These audio sources need to be accessable to both home theater rooms so they must be tied to each receiver. Goal is to split the audio signal, for each source component, so that it goes into the same inputs on receiver A and Receiver B. Thus both receivers are identical. THis makes for easy progamming since its the same for all zones, onl difference is the receiver that is being talked to (i.e. RP6 Output port).

Each Denon has 2 additional zones (total of 4). So by using all 4 either all of the rooms tied to these zones can all listen to the same thing or each of the groups can listen to their own thing.

I will utilize the rear surround amps and assign them to zone 2 on each of the receivers. These each would feed a singe room (Total 2 rooms).

Zone 3 on each receiver would each have to be hooked up to a distribution amp to power the other rooms.

I tried to group together adjacent open rooms, which would have to listen to the same source to make up a single zone. For example kitchen, living room, dining room.

Then I loked to see what other areas could listen to a different source. For example the outside zone (deck & Patio)

There were two smaller rooms, that are away from the other areas so that they each could be their own zones for these 2 rooms.

The only time I had thought about "linking" receivers to each other was in regard to the XM. Each of these receivers has an integrated XM tuner. Two XM tuners was not needed by the customer. A possibility was to assign XM as the source on zone 3 on receiver A and then connect the audio out of zone 3 to an audio input on receiver B. This would allow that tuner to be shared amongs both receivers and all of the sources. We then figured it would be better and more reliable to add an external Polk XM tuner which also in turn free's up the that zone3 output to be used to have additional independant zone control.

If the budget is limited for the first phase, tell the customer the functions are limited for the first phase.

It sounds to me like you have the four zones you need: Receiver A zones 2 and 3 and Receiver B zones 2 and 3. The keypads should be able to control each of these independently. What am I missing?

Xantech has a little IR controlled preamp, 4 in one out, with volume and tone controls. That's the only thing I know of with RI volume, short of a component on a full chassis. But two or four of those is a bunch of money and you're tying to save money for the client, right?

You can tie 3 of those Marantz amps together to get 3 global sources across 9 zones. You can also have a local input per Zone. Its not bad if it fits the application.

Client understands limitations.

Yes I have the 4 zones. What I was inquiring about was an amp to use for the line out audio for each zone 3 on the receivers.

One of these has to go into an amp that has 6 channels (3 rooms) and the other needs to be a min of 4 channels (2 rooms). I would feed the line out on the denon zone 3 to the bus input to feed the amplifiers feeding the room zones. Since I want the RK1-8 to control the Volume in the zones, the Amp needs to allow either IR or serial control of the volume within the amplifier(s) for these rooms.

I think this makes sense unless I am missing something.

I didn't even think about the marantz. I forgot that I read previousposts where you mentioned these. Since I only have 2-3 sources, I can make this alot less complcated by eliminating the use of the Denon's zone outputs all together.

I will just connect the sources to the marantz, loop 3 together and on the third one use the audio outs to the connect to the receivers.

I guess this keeps it simple. I also want to make sure that you can control individual volume on these via IR. It seems like you can from the manual,although it does not make it clear. Figured I would ask you sine you have used them before.

These amp are pretty cheap.

The plan would be an upgrade to digilynx later for phase 2 so I am soing this to give a low cost audio solution for now.

IR is the only way to control these, but there is an IR jack on the back.
Each zone's volume is individually controlled (3 zones per amp X 3 ID codes = 9 separate code sets), and there is a set of global commands.

I've actually used the IR routing on the RP-6 (without using the Marantz ID codes) to give me global control over separate amps.
For example, I set up a very large outdoor area that used all 3 zone amps on one Marantz, and also 3 indoor zones that could be controlled separately, or combined as one large zone. Using IR routing and global commands gives you a great deal of flexibility.

I guess the other option I could explore for this is to just use a Nuvo GC for these zones.

If you plan on upgrading to a digilynx why not look at the Quartet (not sure about the released date). 4 zone 4 source with intercom/local/FM. Its a two gang device only but won't you have two gang openings with the touchlinx. Nuvo is great and I've installed a few of them, but why spend more money to give them metadata. If there is going to be a phase two make them want that option. They will call you back quicker. Otherwise go with the Marantz.