Having finished setting up a new receiver I’m trying to decide whether to run it as 5.1.4 or 7.1.2; if I do go with 5.1.4, the problem is that the receiver can’t use the internal amplifiers for powering zone two, which we need for the deck speakers. As such, I’m keen on some recommendations for a suitable amp to power the second zone.

I'm thinking one of a relatively small and cheap amp off Ali Express or similar - it's not needing to be top-notch or overly powerful as it's just powering a couple of in-ceiling Polk speakers generally used for background music. There are cheap-as ones like this, or others a bit more like this; or the Fosi Audio TB10A from Ali for less than $80 or from Amazon for about twice that. I've had SMSL amps recommended to me prior, so perhaps something like this basic SMSL, which is about the same price. Does anyone have any advice or specific recommendations for brands/models that sound ok and are reliable?

Given it's just operating as a power amp, it doesn't need to have any additional features like BT, WiFi etc; the only thing I can see being useful is a trigger input so it turns on from a trigger signal from the receiver [remote powering on is key, as I don't want to have to go inside to turn on or control it; using a GA-controlled WiFi switch is another potential solution to this.]

I guess the other option could be to completely separate the deck speakers from the receiver; we use a CC Audio to cast music to those speakers, so I could connect the CC directly to a small integrated amp - or are there ones with built-in CC?

Thanks for any ideas.