Hi all, I got help here once before so figured I'd try again.

I am trying to help my technology-challenged parents put the finishing touches on their new home theater system.

Currently they are using a Sony str-ks2300 AVR, with 5.1 surround sound in the living room. All the main stuff is set up and good to go, but now they want to add outside patio speakers...

They already have the outside speakers, total of four (I know that won't be real surround). Two will be mounted up in the corners of the patio, on the house's exterior wall. The other 2 are going inside some rocks on the hill which makes up the back yard. (tiny yard).

Idea is to get a outside speaker volume control and mount it on the patio someplace, but I am not sure how it all gets hooked up. Their handyman said they could just run speaker wire from the volume control to the receiver and connect them to the same speaker ports on the receiver that the inside speakers are connected to, but that doesn't sound right to me. I told him I thought we might also need some sort of an A/B switch, or "Speaker Selector".

Main things they want to be able to do are:

-Listen to the same thing outside as inside

-Control the outside volume while outside, independently from the inside (volume lower inside than outside, or vice versa).

-Turn off outside speakers all together when they're not in use, and have sound only inside

-Not blow up their AVR by having too many speakers connected to it directly

Is the outside volume control all we need, or will this Speaker Selector device or switch of some sort be required?

Thanks in advance for any advice, and if more information is required please let me know.

Please don't write posts with extra spaces. It's irritating.

Second, you speak of the four speakers outdoors as not being real surround. Do you want surround outdoors, or just sound from indoors? Usually stereo sound from indoors is run outside.

If your amp has Speaker A and Speaker B, the way to set this up and work it is:
Speaker B wires to outdoor volume control.
From Volume control to speakers. ONE PAIR.
Since the outdoor speakers are stereo, you'll have to shut off surround and go to Stereo indoors so you'll get stereo outdoors. Otherwise your main sound (center) will be missing outdoors.

Now you can go outdoors and use the volume control to lower the volume in comparison to indoors.

Since you want to run four speakers, and outdoor speakers require more power than indoor speakers for the same volume, and you'll want to have the outdoor speakers in stereo, not in left and right of a surround setup --

all that says you need a separate two-channel amp that can drive four speakers. Take the Tape out or Rec out of your amp and send it to that amp. You then have to be sure you have analog audio connections from each source to the main amp -- digital inputs won't give you outputs at the Rec Out jack.

Volume controls are made to control one pair of 8 ohm speakers, but I've used them with two pairs of 8 ohm speakers with no problems.

Your approach of just sort of tapping off the main receiver, though, will be cumbersome or perhaps damage the amp.

If something is missing from this or the logic doesn't work, consider I'm taking a break on a job where we've worked fourteen days in a row. I hope I was sorta clear, at least.

Thanks for the reply, and sorry for the spacing. Poor formatting resulting from a copy/paste, and unintentional. I have edited the OP to fix that.

Anyways, I will need to double check on this when I am at their house later, but I am pretty sure the receiver/amp does not have A/B switching, nor does it have (I think) analog audio outputs.

Here are the specs on the receiver, maybe you can help me figure this out.

[Link: crutchfield.com] Incidentally, and I doubt it matters, but they are only using the Sub, front, and center speakers that came with this. The rear speakers are some recessed ceiling mounted speakers they bought separately.

Do we need to get a different receiver all together?

Thanks again!

Forget everything I said.

This receiver is meant to work with five speakers for surround in one room.

Period.

Anything else you do will be hokey, cumbersome to operate, and might blow the amp. I don't know Sony receiver models (except to avoid anything stressful on any unit that's not an ES) and I thought this was a real receiver meant to work with whatever speakers you choose, with real outputs and speaker A/B switching. Doing what you want with this system is like milking a bull: if you do figure out how to do something that vaguely resembles what you want to do, what comes out will NOT be what you wanted!

Would it work to just use 2 outside speakers (instead of the planned 4) w/ a volume control, and run them into the same ports used as the inside's front right and left?

Of course then for it to sound right I suppose they'd have to have the receiver set to 2 channel stereo inside, which could get cumbersome, but do you think the 2 extra speakers would risk blowing the receiver?

They'd probably settle for this if it meant avoiding having to buy a whole new receiver.

What you propose will make sound. It won't be loud enough outside. It will seem wrong. It might blow the unit.

But, yeah, it will work. See my answer that you quoted.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure what we are going to do yet, as they've been working on some other projects. I actually told them to just get one of those pandora radio boxes or something for outside, and keep it separate.

I'll report back with results once/if we do anything with the speakers.

Thanks again.