Just moved into a new house, which has two adjacent living areas. Whoever built the house built speaker wiring in, which is awesome - there is a panel behind the TV position that links speaker outputs to Home Theater speaker positions, and to the adjacent living area. Nice.

I don't really do HTPC, but I do want to be able to use the zones. I have a Sony STR-DN1050 amp, a pair of Mission 773e floorstanders in one room and a pair of old QEF Q1s in the other.

I want complete flexibility with how I use the zones. I want the kids to be able to use one zone for playing on the Switch while I listen to something in the other room, or I want one source to do both rooms, or I want to direct one source to either room, or whatever. The Sony almost does this, but not quite. It will only output analogue inputs to zone 2, and selecting different outputs (and volume levels) for zone 2 entails going into the settings menu. It's close, but just too fiddly, and I want to do better.

An easy option is to just buy another amp for the second room, but I would prefer not to have the clutter - it's really neat to just have the speakers plugged into the wall.

I think I need to replace the Sony, but it's hard to tell which amplifiers would solve this problem well. Anyone have experience or suggestions?

TIA!