Yamaha Zone 2/Presence

miikeeyy92 · 7 May 2018 at 15:20

Hi all.

I have a Yamaha RX-V677 that is currently powering a 5.1 set up in my living room. We'd love to have a pair of speakers in the kitchen also, but the whole Zone 2 thing is confusing me.

As I understand it, we cant send audio to the 2 speakers solely, as it would be from a digital source. The amp doesnt have pre-out either so cant drive another amp. The next option to do is have the speakers set up as 'presence' speakers but I'm not sure how it would work.

Basically, id like in an ideal world to have just the kitchen speakers on, but I know that won't work (I think). Instead id like in 'music mode' where I use the amps settings to fill all the speakers and so the kitchen + lounge is on. Then during films/TV the amp is in 'straight' mode, so fills the 5.1 if a 5.1 source, and the kitchen isn't on.

Can anyone explain?

lucid · 7 May 2018 at 16:42

Presence isn't the right way to go, so you can set that aside and just concentrate on Zone 2.

Yes, there's a limit with digital sources. This would be HDMI, or Optical or Coax. There's only one DAC inside most AV amps*. It is dedicated to Zone 1. Anything running from the Zone 2 needs to be in analogue format. There is an exception with a lot of amps though that have internet radio. You can use that in Zone 2 as well because the tuner module decodes internally.

Some digital sources have secondary outputs that are either analogue or that can be converted to analogue. For example, a Sky Q box main output is HDMI, but there's also an optical too. This can be used at the same time as HDMI. It has separate menu settings. Optical can be set to stereo even though the HDMI out is doing 5.1 Once you have either Optical or Coax in a simple stereo digital format (PCM 48kHz) then it can be connected to a simple and inexpensive DAC (£10-£20 from the usual web vendors) to convert to a stereo analogue signal.

Clearly this kind of solution won't work for say a Blu-ray player with only a HDMI. That's just a limit of the tech, so you have to pick and choose your sources.

* This is starting to change and filter down from the high-end stuff, but it's a gradual process, and as far as the 677 is concerned, it's still the case that there's only one DAC

miikeeyy92 · 8 May 2018 at 08:42

lucid said:
Presence isn't the right way to go, so you can set that aside and just concentrate on Zone 2.

Yes, there's a limit with digital sources. This would be HDMI, or Optical or Coax. There's only one DAC inside most AV amps*. It is dedicated to Zone 1. Anything running from the Zone 2 needs to be in analogue format. There is an exception with a lot of amps though that have internet radio. You can use that in Zone 2 as well because the tuner module decodes internally.

Some digital sources have secondary outputs that are either analogue or that can be converted to analogue. For example, a Sky Q box main output is HDMI, but there's also an optical too. This can be used at the same time as HDMI. It has separate menu settings. Optical can be set to stereo even though the HDMI out is doing 5.1 Once you have either Optical or Coax in a simple stereo digital format (PCM 48kHz) then it can be connected to a simple and inexpensive DAC (£10-£20 from the usual web vendors) to convert to a stereo analogue signal.

Clearly this kind of solution won't work for say a Blu-ray player with only a HDMI. That's just a limit of the tech, so you have to pick and choose your sources.

* This is starting to change and filter down from the high-end stuff, but it's a gradual process, and as far as the 677 is concerned, it's still the case that there's only one DAC

Thanks for your reply. Sounds like, depending on my original source (HTPC at the moment, soon to be apple TV), there might be an option for analogue output. If not, split the signal somehow and have a DAC in the way.

lucid · 8 May 2018 at 11:12

miikeeyy92 said:
Thanks for your reply. Sounds like, depending on my original source (HTPC at the moment, soon to be apple TV), there might be an option for analogue output. If not, split the signal somehow and have a DAC in the way.

You'll need to have a think about audio formats before going down the road of splitting HDMI outputs on the Apple TV 4. Also, if you plan to use ARC, then an audio de-embedder could bugger that up too.

For movie watching, you'll probably want at least DD and DTS from the ATV4 video streams. However, any HDMI device designed to de-embed sound for your Zone 2 feed won't know what to do with any bitstream or multichannel PCM audio. They're designed to convert stereo PCM (digital stereo) in to analogue stereo. That's about your lot. Running the raw bitstream DD/DTS/HD audio through such a device won't break it, but there's a good chance it'll pass the stream of bleeps, chirps and whistles straight through to the analogue output. That won't do your speakers much good if someone inadvertently switches Z2 on while the ATV4 is busy playing movies in Z1.

Basic de-embedders with HDMI pass-thru range from £40-£80. For that sort of money you could pick up a used ATV3 or even an ATV2. If Z2 is just for playing music from Apple or Spotify or your home music library then this might be a simpler solution than a bunch of extra boxes attached to the new ATV4 that then cause limitations elsewhere.