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View Full Version : Denon 3805 multizone trials and tribulations



johnnylongwood
06-29-2005, 02:03 PM
I'm having trouble setting up zone 2 and would greatly appreciate some help.

Zone 1: Den HT in 5.1 (2pr CBM-170's, 1 CMT-340c)
Zone 2: Deck (Niles OS-25's)
Zone 3: LR (CBM-170's)

Initially I was planning on getting a niles table top volume control and speaker selector for 2 pair of speakers (deck and LR) and call this zone 2. My installer had the brilliant idea of using an old Onkyo receiver to do the same job. A & B speaker selection, but the drawback was no independent volume contols. It worked fine and I had tunes going in both rooms. I probably should have stopped here and left everything as it was. :D

The lack of independent volume bugged me & I wanted to be able to use my tube integrated amp to drive the speakers in the LR. No problem, I set the LR up as zone 3 and used the line outs on the denon with no problem. I can control the volume from the amp.

The denon should be able to drive zone 2 speakers using the surround back/multi zone amplifiers. I hooked up the deck speakers to these taps. Selected zone 2 for those apms using the setup menu. I have the CD player connected using the analog inputs, select CD as the source for zone 2 and I get nothing. I went back and deselected the amplifiers for zone 2, so that the zone 2 volume option appears in the setup menu. I set this to variable, which according to the manual should allow me to control the volume using the remote. I get nothing, no sound out of the deck speakers. :confused:

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This was bugging me yesterday, so I went home a fooled around with it some more. The receiver will only drive the speakers in Zone 2 when you have the power for Zone 2 turned on... :eek: Pretty embarrasing. There was no mention in the manual that you had to turn on the zone 2 power using the remote control. Selecting a source for the zone does not turn on the power to that zone. Hopefully this will spare someone else from the same embarrasment.

Thx - J

metalaaron
06-30-2005, 09:49 AM
no worries amigo. that's good info for those who will try the same thing. i was going to try it out the next time i had a chance. cool. enjoy your weekend. :)