@brian_holmes
I was in your exact same situation, looked at the Parasound Classic, but didn’t need the included phono stage or DAC, so purchased the ZPre3 preamp. Am extremely happy with it, and cheaper than the Classic without the above. It does have HT bypass, so the Yammy is only used in 5.1 for TV, and gets passed through the Parasound to my amp (driving my mains) in HT mode. All 2 channel sources goes through the Parasound ZPre3
My music sounds so much better not using the Yamaha as the pre. You won’t believe the difference, in a good way. I didn’t want to believe it would make the difference it has, but it did.
I was in your exact same situation, looked at the Parasound Classic, but didn’t need the included phono stage or DAC, so purchased the ZPre3 preamp. Am extremely happy with it, and cheaper than the Classic without the above. It does have HT bypass, so the Yammy is only used in 5.1 for TV, and gets passed through the Parasound to my amp (driving my mains) in HT mode. All 2 channel sources goes through the Parasound ZPre3
My music sounds so much better not using the Yamaha as the pre. You won’t believe the difference, in a good way. I didn’t want to believe it would make the difference it has, but it did.