I'm looking at possibly buying the 1050 and have a couple questions stemming from the fact that it doesn't have A/B speaker capability nor a phono jack.

I will be using this 70% for HS and 30% HT. I will have a 5.1 speaker setup but also need to power another pair of speakers hanging in a separate room (via in-wall wiring). I also want to be able to use a phono turntable. Eventually (no time soon) I expect to add a center rear surround speaker and also possibly two front effects speakers high on the front wall, not necessarily in that order.

I'd like to know if I can use my existing integrated amp, a 15-year-old Onkyo A-8037 (35wpc x 4), with the 1050. The goal would be to use the Onkyo to power the speakers in the separate room (and possibly also the front "effects" speakers in the main room, whenever I get those) and also to be able to hook up the phono to the Onkyo. The Onkyo does not have preamp outs; would I be able to jury-rig a connection using, say, the tape monitor loop?

I've also read about people using the 1050 as a pre-amp for the 750, and using the 1050 to power the center surround. If in combo with the 750 would it be possible to use the 1050 to power the center surround as well as the two speakers in the separate room and perhaps also the front effects speakers? (and is the front effects thing just a crazy idea? I know Yamaha builds some receivers capable of handling just such a setup.)

Thanks in advance.

Front effects speakers are particular to a few receivers and pre/pros (Yamaha being the one that springs to mind, I'm not aware of anybody else who does anything similar) -- you could hook a second set of speakers up to the main speaker outputs, but that wouldn't really be what the Yamaha front effects do.

If the old Onkyo has a phono input, you could hook the turntable to the Onkyo and the tape monitor output to the 1050's aux. input (for example) -- that should allow you to use the Onkyo as a "phono preamp".

You could use the Onkyo to power the second room's speakers (connect the 1050's preamp out or tape monitor out to an input on the Onkyo), as long as you don't want to listen to the turntable in the second room.

As for the 1050/750 combo, I've got a couple of comments and thoughts. The 1050 can (and is in fact pretty much expected to) drive the center surround when the other five channels are externally amplified (as when a 750 is added). It could presumably also drive the separate room's speakers from the main speaker connections, but you'd have no independent volume control or ability to run one room without the other (you could perhaps add a speaker selector switch between the 1050 and the separate room's speakers, so you could disconnect those speakers). And as I mentioned, true front effects aren't an option without some Yamaha processing.

Thanks gonk, very helpful info.

"Front effects" isn't precisely what I'm after, now that I think more about it. I'm more interested in the idea of expanding and fleshing out the front soundstage (without DSPs). Think Grateful Dead "Wall of Sound" here ... well sorta ... I can see it will be essential to be able to control volume independently for those "second fronts," to be able to calibrate them within the HT. (also need ability to run one room w/o other but can live without phono in room 2.)

I am using the 1050 with an external amp and for a while ran a second zone using my old H/K receiver as the amp for zone 2. One thing to note, when you use the pre-amp outs on the 1050, they are volume controlled. If you use an input on the Onkyo, I think it also would be volume controlled. You might get a cascaded volume scenario, such that if the 1050 was at, say 50 on the dial, and the Onkyo was at a low volume number, you would get an acceptable volume, but with distortion. It might not work exactly like that, but in the past, I had that scenario with my cable box. Its volume was maxxed and the sound was terrible. I lowered the volume level on it and upped the receiver's volume and all was fine. My H/K had pre-amp inputs for the stereo channel (i.e. volume bypassed) so I used them. But I never got around to running an IR repeater back to the 1050 to control the volume. Your post and Gonk’s reply made me re-think it a bit.

My thought is to use a loop output from the 1050 to one of the Onkyo's inputs, which was one of Gonk's suggestions. In my mind, that would put the volume control on the Onkyo, regardless of volume settings on the 1050. If you use pre-amp outs, the 1050's volume control would be active.

If I am mistaken, somebody please let me know, as I then want to figure out what I did wrong with my initial installation. Sometimes the wiring maze is a headache to say the least.

S.

On a side-note. If you plan to eventually ditch the Onkyo or want to upgrade to a great budget phono preamp look into the Parasound PPH-100. I paid $120 for a brand new one and it rocks. I use it with my Rega P3 through the Aux input.
Eric

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I would like to suggest the phono preamp made by NAD. I was able to buy one for $90 and it does an excellent job working thru the AUX input of my receiver.