some of us have kids and a wife that enjoy movies so we compromise.My tv is a 35 in reference monitor which sits above a fire place and a good 6 feet or so behind the speakers,but i can see were this would not work with a big screen and the monitor has a better pcture anyway short of hi-def.I use a b&k receiver which is there reference pre amp in a box with 5 decent amps but it does have analog pass through for sacd which happens to be a feature on my dvd player.I have five speakers that i built with scan speak 1845's and revelator tweeters and two powered subs that are more designed for music.the front two speakers i am changing the caps to hovland,as i only use two speakers for audio and the other three have solen caps.I have no imaging,soundstaging or any other compromises that have been talked about here,so yes this can be done without taking away from audio only enjoyment,i think you have to approach the movie theater the way you would your two channel.Think like an audiophile.I do move my center channel into correct position when we are to watch movies the rest of the time it sits six feet back.The only thing i would ever think of upgrading besides cable is maybe a mark levinson 2 channel amp for the ultimate two channel/theater.
I give up on HT
After auditioning several home theater preamp processors and not getting the two channel sound i expected. I took the advice of previous threads and purchased a line stage preamp, I got a conrad johnson model pf-r and life is great. This website has loads of good info if you dare to wade in. Now all i have to do is figure out how to hook up my home theater receiver into the loop.