How To Integrate Whole Home Audio + Living Rooms (5.1 or 7.1)

[ccmichaelson]

A little background... New Construction.  I plan to home run speaker wires and all equipment into mechanical room in basement.  I have two living rooms (main floor and basement) + dedicated theater room.  In living rooms I plan to have 5+ speakers attached to a standard 5.1/7.1 AV receiver which will reside in the central mechanical room (with everything else).  I'm considering the 8-zone russound system to distribute audio to many speakers throughout my home (office, patio, kitchen, etc.).
 
How would I tie together a Russound system + multiple 5.1/7.1 AV receivers such that we could listen to streaming music like pandora on any speaker regardless if the speaker is tied directly to the whole home audio system or an AV receiver?
 
The reverse is true where I'm watching TV/movie in the living room and would like to "turn on" the speaker in the kitchen which isn't part of the 5.1/7.1 system but the kitchen would be attached to the russound amp.

 

[pete_c]

I do that today with audio outputs from the AVR's to my Russound amps (12 zones).  Works fine. 

 

[Neurorad]

2 ways that I know of for doing this.

1. As Pete said, use the Russound as an input to each AVR.
2. Share the rear/surround back speakers using an auto-sensing A/B switch. I think Russound makes one.

Nuvo Grand Concerto keypads include a trigger output to activate the Nuvo A/B switch - not sure if Russound KPs offer that too.