Are amp or preamp as important as source in setup?

hi all and thx for advise. Today, I just bought a used Bryston 5B-ST, any suggestion of a pre-amp or receiver? Since I am going to setup a HD 5.1 system in future, is it better to get a receiver instead of audio pre-amp. I am doing 50% music and 50% movie/TV. Any suggestion of pre-amp or receiver around $800?
THX!!!!

In relative importance: source, preamp, amp. I personally would add speakers after amp on this list, though on this forum there are few that are like minded.

With regard to amps, please don't equate power to the ability to produce a quality of listening experience. If anything, as a rough rule of thumb, the opposite is true at a given price point. This is because it is much harder to make a good sounding 500 watt amp then it is a good sounding 100 watt amp. Your speakers at 4 ohm impedance and 86 db sensitivity do benefit from power, but a *good* 100 or so watt amp that is stable into low ohm loads is plenty for most applications in my opinion.

From the the different opinions I always see on this topic I'd say it depends on your system.

In my system upgrading from an AV SS integrated amp to a high end 2 channel SS amp made a minor difference.

Different preamps made much bigger differences in the sound quality for my system. Tube preamps were the sweet spot for me.

I've heard huge differences by A/Bing tube amps in systems. So I'd say yes for tube amps. Not near as much in SS amp A/Bing.

I'd want horsepower amps for inefficent speakers like planar, but for the other types I haven't seen much of a difference in different SS amps.