cheap receiver with multiroom capabilities?

[pennylane]

I need a receiver that can do multiroom, but it doesn't have to be that powerful or that great. HDMI isn't necessary. It just needs standard stuff: component inputs, dolby digital/dts, etc.

I'd like to keep it as close to $100 as possible, though that may not be reasonable. If it's not reasonable, what are the cheapest multiroom receivers around? The feature doesn't seem as common as I first thought.

Here's my situation: My aunt wants to have speakers for 3 rooms in her apartment. I don't want to hook up the speakers to the surrounds and surround-backs and then use a 6-channel stereo mode (duplicating the fronts to the surrounds) because something might happen with a setting and my aunt would be confused. So, I think the best option would be to get a multi-room receiver and hook it up to a speaker-switcher of some kind. I'm not sure if the speaker-switcher would be any easier, though. What do you think?

If I go with the multi-room + speaker-switcher combo, I would only use the fronts and the multi-room speakers. I wouldn't use the surrounds. This Denon AVR-486 is the cheapest one I can find. How does it look? Denon is a brand I'd trust. I'm not sure about the seller, though.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I think having to deal with setting up the second zone source vs. primary zone and an additional switcher would be harder to fix if something went wrong vs. getting the setting back to 6 (7) channel stereo.

Would she mind if all rooms played whenever she wanted to listen?

 

[pennylane]

Yeah now I'm thinking it might be easier to just set the 6/7 channel stereo. I think she WANTS to hear everything play in all the rooms.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: fanerman91
Yeah now I'm thinking it might be easier to just set the 6/7 channel stereo. I think she WANTS to hear everything play in all the rooms.

I guess that would be the way to do it then, and then make sure that you give clear written instructions on how to get things back to 7 channel stereo if things get messed up?

Are these just going to be 2.0 sets in all the rooms, or 2.1?

 

[pennylane]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: fanerman91
Yeah now I'm thinking it might be easier to just set the 6/7 channel stereo. I think she WANTS to hear everything play in all the rooms.</end quote></div>

I guess that would be the way to do it then, and then make sure that you give clear written instructions on how to get things back to 7 channel stereo if things get messed up?

Are these just going to be 2.0 sets in all the rooms, or 2.1?

Yeah I think that should work. She's a smart lady, I'm sure she could figure it out.

She'll just be going 2.0. I really don't think she needs a subwoofer.