Pioneer Elite Zone 2 amplification

[polktiger]

I was hoping an owner of one of the Elite receivers can answer a question for me on Zone 2 amplification. Looking at the owner's manual and talking to the people at BB Magnolia are no help.

If I were to assign the back surround channel to power Zone 2, can I use a pre-out to an amp to still get all 7 channels? As an alternative, since I use a 5 channel amp already for the font 5 speakers, can I assign the surround channel amp to power the back surround speakers?

Since I rarely use Zone 2, I would rather not "waste" 2 channels off the amp, and I don't like to move my gear, so I want to avoid changing out the connections when I do want to use Zone 2

[mantis]

This is how you do it.

Buy a external amp, run analog rca out of the zone 2 outputs. Keep your 7 channels internally for the theater.

You have the ability to use fixed or variable out so this is where you control volume in zone 2.
If you need a step by step I can do that for yeah.

[polktiger]

I am already running a 5 channel sunfire for the front 5 with only the 2 back surrounds and the zone 2 being powered by my avr. While I have a couple extra amps that I could use to power zone 2, I have no space in the AV cabinet since I caved and agreed to let a cable box in my house (still a sore spot with me since I refused to have a cable box ever since I got rid of that blasted 36 channel push button thing from the mid '80s).

But back to my real point, I don't think I want to move the 5 main speakers back to avr power especially if I decide to switch them out of LSi in a few years, moving the current speakers to another room. I don't own an elite, I am just weighing my options.