[klh]

Not to dredge up old thoughts... but I think I will .

I'm thinking about having an inexpensive receiver in the family room/kitchen to listen to music and the radio while doing other things. The SA-XR55 popped into my mind. I rember from way back that most of the Panny receivers had Party Mode. The question I have is in order to bi or tri amp, does one need to run extra speaker cable, or can the Panny douple or tripple up the power through one set of wires? I like the idea of having two main budget speakers, and then 4 or 5 others placed in strategic places throught the open part of the house (as well as potentially the back yard). It would be nice to channel all or most of the power to the main speakers when wanting to really turn it up, but then also have the ability to have music enveloping the the broader open part of the house (at lower volumes) when we have larger gatherings. If this receiver isn't capable of this type of functioning, please recommend another that can do it.

Thanks!

EDIT: I think I'm referring to a combination of Party Mode and Bi-Amp and Triple-Amp Drive. I can only get one or the other... right?

[klh]

I dowloaded a PDF of the 55 manual. It looks like one can traditionally bi-amp a pair of biampable speakers with the A and B terminals or one can dual-amp in two channel mode with just the A terminals (which borrows a pair of the surround amps) for increased power. Inferring from this statement, it sounds like one can have two pairs of speakers in 2-channel mode running simultaneously (e.g. one pair in one room and one pair in another), and at the same time have dual-amp mode increasing the power driving the speakers hooked up to the A terminals. Is that correct? This would effectively mean the pair of speaker hooked up to the A terminals would be getting 200 watts apiece whereas the pair of speaker hooked up to the B terminals would be getting 100 watts apiece.

[dave_c]

I had a modded XR45 which was really nice.  My goal was to use Party mode as well but I found out that Party mode doesn't work in 24/96 mode.  That was a bummer but if you're going to feed analog or 16/44.1 it should be a non issue.  Just wanted to give you  a heads up.

[klh]

Thanks for pointer! This will only be for casual listening in common parts of the house so that shouldn't be of concern. I have a separate dedicated room with a much better setup. Had this been for critical listening that would have been crucial.

[Feisal K]

also I think the XR55 doesn't have "party mode" - I suppose triple-amp achieves similar to what you want to do if using party mode to biamp