improving stereo listening with ht set up

Yeah, pay attention to the first reflections, get a rug, and maybe a nice used $700 Audio Refinement Complete Integrated and ask your spouse to watch your jaw drop!

How about damping the first and second reflection points with some type of acoustic panel? That would tame the brightness some and improve imaging.

Search these forums as this had been discussed ad nauseum.

In summary, here are the two main suggestions:

1) purchase a high quality two-channel amplifier. Use the B&K's preouts to this new amp and connect the new amp to your speakers.

Benefits: your B&K will not have to amplify the main speakers and you can easily find a dedicated amp that will beat most receivers.

2) buy an integrated and take the B&K completely out of the loop when listening to stereo. Many integrateds have a HT pass-through feature but it's not 100% necessary.

Benefits: a dedicated two-channel integrated will most likely have superior performance (on the pre- and power- sides) over a receiver.

Check out my system to see how I did it and search the archives on the 'gon.

Good luck!