Dumb question HT bypass

Ok good luck. It is my opinion that you won't achieve good 2 channel sound that way.  

Excellent explanation. I do the same and actually rarely use my 5.1 preamp at all because it just doesn't sound very good compared to the preamp I use for stereo listening. I don't know of an AVR that has XLR's, but maybe. There are multi-channel preamps that have XLR's.

Seems like maxwave is confused, I know I am.

Yes, I reread your posts above and must have not read them correctly the first time. I thought you were connecting your preamp to the AVR then to your amps, my bad. I have found that keeping low level analog and digital signals in separate enclosures with separate power supplies yields the best result for a 2 channel system. Sorry for my confusion...

@fuzztone 
Sorry, responding to vinylshadow.