Outdoor Speaker Set-up questions

[thekid]

My patio is just off of the family room where I have a 5.1 HT set up. I am thinking about running some speaker cable out to the patio and setting up 2 outdoor speakers. I am not looking to spend too much for the speakers and I see CC and BB have some cheapies on sale. Anyone have any outdoor speaker recommendations/experience that might help me decide. Also even though they say outdoor speakers do they need to be protected from the elements to some degree?

The reciever I would be using is a Pioneer VSX-815. Does anyone have an idea what the best way to set-up the additional outdoor speakers. I can set up a second zone with this reciever apparently so would that be the route to go?

Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions.

[thekid]

Well since I am having a cook out later today I went ahead and bought some Isignia Outdoor speakers for $25 a pair at BB. They came with the brackets and it only took about 5 minutes to screw the brackets into the 4X4 posts off of my patio. I hooked them up using an old Sony reciever which I was not using. Here are the specs off of the BB website;

Number of Speakers per Package 2
Signal-to-Noise Ratio 84dB
Peak Power Handling 40W
Frequency Response 90Hz - 20kHz
Crossover Type 3-way
Subwoofer 4" polypropylene cone
Subwoofer Driver 4"
Woofer 2" polycarbonate cone
Enclosure Type Airtight box
Magnetically Shielded No
Impedance 8 ohms nominal

So far the sound is not too bad. Bass is weak as you might expect and they sound better at higher volumes. I have had them on now for about 3 hours and the sound seems to have improved a bit so it seems these do need to be broken in.

I still think I want to run them off of my Pioneer rather than the Sony so any help in that area would still be appreciated. Currently I have the Sony sitting on top pf my subwoofer which is in the corner and hidden by a chair. If I decide to keep using the Sony to power these is there a drawback to having the reciever sitting on the sub?

I will write a more detailed of these speakers when I have had them awhile and they have "weathered" a bit. I know outdoor speakers are probably not a big topic here but what the heck.