3 channel amp to compliment Pass Aleph 30 for HT

I would recommend buying more Pass Labs Aleph XX amps. Anything else will be a compromise. Those Pass Labs Aleph 60 monos just sold, so you missed those. Add 60's to the front and move the 30's to the rear. 6ch is not a bad idea either in case you want to move up to 6.1 later.

If you really want a 3ch amp there is a Mccormack DNA-HT1 available. But, for 500 bucks more you could have a stack of Pass amps instead.

If you really don't care much about muti-channel music or the quality of surround sound than there are many more choices. Match your amps and your speakers for the best results.

REL subs seem to be a big favorite when it comes to musical subs. You can spend hours reading up on these in the forums.

Yep, seems like overkill, but the only way to do it right. The Pass amps will hold their value too, so it's not like you are throwing your money away.

This is a common mistake made with multichannel set-ups. Different amps and speakers for the surround and center channels. It's no different than making your right speaker different than your left. Think about it.

Monarchy makes good amps. Not a bad choice, just different.

Another solution would be to buy a cheaper 5 channel amp and switch to your Pass amps for stereo. You would need to switch cabling though. Or, you could sell the Pass and put the cash towards a more expensive 5-channel amp.

Just as speakers sound different, so do amps. I can't say what the differences will be between Pass and Monarchy, but they will sound different.

Surround mix distribution:

50% Center
20% Left
20% Right
10% Surround channels

Yes, you could use 3 identical mono's or a 3 ch amp for the fronts and use the Pass for the rears. As you can see, about 90% of the mix would be matched.

The rears are only 10%. Yes, it is the least critical. It's hard to justify spending the same amout for only 10% of the sound. I am only suggesting that matching everything is ideal, and that is what Dolby Labs recommends. Anything else will be a compromise.

You could go with no center channel. Here is a thread that gives some insight from others that have tried the center channel thing and found they prefer a system without it.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?bhome&1116248423&read&keyw&zzcenter+speaker