Anyone familiar with 'Zone 2' function on Onkyo av receivers?

[md99]

If so I'm hoping that maybe you could confirm a few things for me.

I have my TV, blu ray player, speakers and subwoofer hooked up to the av receiver in the thread title (Onkyo tx-sr507).

I want to connect a second seperate set of speakers to it, which can be done so via the 'zone 2' function. The speakers I'll be connecting to it are a pair of Q-Acoustic 2010's and they are the speakers I want to use for my PC.

That is pretty straightforward but what I'm not completely sure of is how I connect my PC to the receiver when utilizing the zone 2 feature.

This is how I think its done....

Pictured above is the receiver. I hook the 2010's to the terminals within the green circled area.

I then get one of the above stereo to RCA cables and connect the red and white end into the 'zone 2 line out' outputs in the red circled area.

And finally, is it a case of connecting the 3.5mm end of the aforementioned cable into my sound cards analogue output socket (my pc doesn't have digital optical or coaxial outputs) which will then allow me to listen to the pc through the new speakers?

Here is a link to the receiver manual:

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/dl/1334036/Manual_TX-SR507_English.pdf

Provided I'm not completely wrong with all of the above a significantly less extensive how-to is explained on page 80

Thanks for your patience

 

[BigJon]

Almost right
The 3.5 end of the cable wants to go into the green port on the soundcard, but you need to plug the 2 (red& white) jacks into an input on the amp, not an output. From the above I would choose TV IN (under the component IN. ) The sockets you have lined in Red are if you wanted to send the "Zone2" audio out onto another amp, rather than direct to the second speakers via the green lined connectors.


Or you can ignore what I wrote above and do the sensible choice and get either a Digital Coax cable or Digital

Digital Coaxial Cable

or

Toslink Optical Cable

Either of those would be the best bet as you can output surrond sound from the PC direct to the amp.

 

[md99]

Thanks very much, appreciate your help. Incidentally, both ways worked

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Sorry I know this is quite an old post but I am thinking about getting one of these amps. What I need to understand is do the zone 2 speakers operate seperately from the main 5.1, or are they all on together. I want to use the zone 2 output to feed several sets of speakers throughout the house using a 4 way speaker switch.
I have never had an AV receiver before and dont really understand fully how the HDMI inputs operate. Presumably you feed any HDMI capable source e.g BluRay player, SkyHD box, Dune Base 3.0 into the HDMI sockets on the tuner and a single feed from the tuner to the TV? Can you then control each source via the tuner?
Fozzie

 

[lucid]

For what you want to do, Zone 2 can be set up as independent from the 5.1 speakers, so it would be like having two amps but in one box. There will be a button press on the remote and front panel to toggle between controlling the amp for either zone.

There's one thing you need to know about Zone 2 functions: Zone 2 doesn't decode any digital sources. Any signal coming in on HDMI, coax or optical won't be available for Zone 2. You'll need an analogue feed (red & white phonos) for each source you want to pipe through to Z2.


Control: If you mean does the amp (what you call tuner) act as a remote control for the various sources then the answer is no. You will use the amp to switch sources though.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Thanks Lucid, I REALLY appreciate your reply.
The functionality you describe about two effectively seperate amps, isnt that only available in the higher spec model ie Onkyo TXSR577?? I am looking at the cheaper version the 507.
If it is still the case then what you describe is perfect. I dont need digital sources on Zone 2 as I would connect my ipod to an analogue input and also my Panasonic DVDRW which I use for playing back and music CD or DVDs I might still have. Most of my music is ripped to my home server.
As an aside do you know if the ipod dock connected to the universal port is treated as analogue or digital as far as Zone 2 is concerned? I also assume that you can only connect one device at a time to the universal port e.g Dab receiver or iPod?

Finally is my understanding correct of the way the HDMI ports operate. ie the receiver controls the source switching to the TV? This will be good as I am running out of HDMI ports on the TV.

 

[lucid]

Thanks Lucid, I REALLY appreciate your reply.
The functionality you describe about two effectively seperate amps, isnt that only available in the higher spec model ie Onkyo TXSR577?? I am looking at the cheaper version the 507.

I was describing the general Zone 2 principles.

I can see that Onkyo does something different for the 507. It still runs as two amps, but when Z2 is active the rear channels are reassigned to drive the Z2 outputs. That's the only way possible with a 5.1 amp unless there's a pre-out connection to an external power amp. If you want 5.1 + powered speakers for Z2 then the amp needs to be at least 7.1 channel amp.

Incidentally, the 507 and 577 are a couple of generations old now. The current versions are the 9 series.

As an aside do you know if the ipod dock connected to the universal port is treated as analogue or digital as far as Zone 2 is concerned? I also assume that you can only connect one device at a time to the universal port e.g Dab receiver or iPod?

Everything I've read suggests that the UP-A1 is analogue only.... And yes, just one device at a time to the Universal Port I think.

Finally is my understanding correct of the way the HDMI ports operate. ie the receiver controls the source switching to the TV? This will be good as I am running out of HDMI ports on the TV.

It's not something special about HDMIs that allow this to work. It's just the amp acting as a switch; but yes, you don't need any extra HDMI sockets on the TV as the amp will route the HDMI input you select to its HDMI output connected to the TV.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Lucid,
Again many thanks for your reply. I appreciate that the 507 is a couple of generations old but it still appears to have the functionality I need and is within my budget.
Ironically this all started because my Home Server in the loft is overheating in this current heatwave and I need to bring it down to somewhere cooler

Its a full size server tower so I intend rebuilding it in a MiniITX case and put it with my AV equipment. Hence my existing Sony DAR-RD100 Sub/Amp has to go along with a Cambridge Audio stereo amp to make room in the cabinet
Fozzie