I also owned the Dreadnaught II as well as other multi-channel amps from Conrad Johnson and Krell. I can tell you that emphatically none of these could compare to a large number of equally priced and even lower priced two channel amps in terms of stereo (2-channel performance). The Dreadnaught lasted two weeks in my system before I sold it, to a guy where it lasted one week - due to its performance in 2-channel operation. I bought into the rave reviews on this amps claim to perform in 2-channel, as did the guy who bought it from me.
Is it a bad amp? No, but there are a large number of 2-channel amps at a fraction of its new price that will outperform it in 2-channel mode. This is not a knock on just the Dreadnaught though, this has been my experience with all the multi-channel amps to date. Of course, the rest of your system will help determine the performance in both HT and 2-channel operation (as a note, I am also a believer from experience that the pre/pros cannot perform in 2-channel mode at or near the same level as two channel preamps - having gone through many pre/pros [McIntosh/Acurus/B&K/Krell/etc. .] and preamps [Aesthetix/Cary/BAT/ARC/Jeff Rowland/etc. . .]).
Is it a bad amp? No, but there are a large number of 2-channel amps at a fraction of its new price that will outperform it in 2-channel mode. This is not a knock on just the Dreadnaught though, this has been my experience with all the multi-channel amps to date. Of course, the rest of your system will help determine the performance in both HT and 2-channel operation (as a note, I am also a believer from experience that the pre/pros cannot perform in 2-channel mode at or near the same level as two channel preamps - having gone through many pre/pros [McIntosh/Acurus/B&K/Krell/etc. .] and preamps [Aesthetix/Cary/BAT/ARC/Jeff Rowland/etc. . .]).