“here is my advice. Get a preamp with home theatre bypass. Plug all youR music sources into this preamp. Get a badass two channel amp for the front speakers. Get as good of a multi channel amp for the other speakers.”
This is what I, too, did. I got one of Denon’s higher-end 5.1 AVRs, a Rythmik FG12 sub (here on Agon), a vintage B&K EX-442 Sonata 2-channel amp and a Parasound P5 preamp with home theater bypass (which is CRITICAL to a system with this configuration). I had an Adcom 5-channel amp that I had previously used with older Paradigm speakers, but it wasn’t enough to drive the Magnepan MMG speakers I purchased for stereo listening, so I run my center MMG-C and Paradigm Phantom v3 rear channel speakers through it. I don’t even USE the AVR for amplification (but again, I had the multi-channel amp laying around). I bought a used Oppo BDP-93 Blu-ray/SACD player for movie and some CD listening, and also scored a mint Denon DVD-2900 DVD player for other SACD/CD listening. Oh, and because of the size of my CD collection, I practically stole a mint Pioneer DV-F727 300 disc changer just to have my favorites at my fingertips. I took a few hours and created a spreadsheet of artists and titles for easy access to anything I might want to hear (even though it has a title/artist display window).
I have under $5,000 into my admittedly mid-fi system but to my trained ear.......it all sounds pretty damned good to me. Yeah, I’ve got a stack of components but it’s orderly and aesthetically fitting for my living room.
confused and don't know what to do
We would like to buy a nice audio system and also have this double as a surround sound but listening to music is the priority. We have listened to many speakers but have settled on the B&W 804's. Now the challenge is to select a receiver and all the other accompaniments we require. We have a little challenge in that our home is a condo and the outside wall is all glass. The space is combined kitchen, living room, and dining room all open with hardwood floors and hard tile on the walls of the kitchen and a lot of granite counter tops. It seems that every where we go, the recommendations are different depending on what the store is selling and of course, the sales people would like us to buy the most expensive. What would give great sound without going crazy. We are thinking about 2 tribe sub woofers and space is limited and an in wall center B&W speaker but we don't know what we are doing and don't want to throw our money away. Help! Too many choices and we don't have enough knowledge. Thank you so much.