My first serious HT setup revived my love for good music - which led me down the typical road of AVR first, then AVR with external amplification and some speaker upgrades.
Yet, I still felt something was holding back that major step up in sound quality - which was the AVR (the swiss army knife of a multitude of av features and the master of none).
Best thing I've done is to get a good integrated amp with HT Bypass to have a combo HT/Music setup.
Here's how my rig is set up
Overall diagram: http://erikt.cts.com/Pictures/hometheater/HT-Bypass-Diagram-1.jpg
For Movies:
http://erikt.cts.com/Pictures/hometheater/HT-Bypass-Diagram-HTmode.jpg
For 2-channel Music:
http://erikt.cts.com/Pictures/hometheater/HT-Bypass-Diagram-2chnlmode.jpg
No muss, no fuss, no cable swapping.
Yet, I still felt something was holding back that major step up in sound quality - which was the AVR (the swiss army knife of a multitude of av features and the master of none).
Best thing I've done is to get a good integrated amp with HT Bypass to have a combo HT/Music setup.
Here's how my rig is set up
Overall diagram: http://erikt.cts.com/Pictures/hometheater/HT-Bypass-Diagram-1.jpg
For Movies:
http://erikt.cts.com/Pictures/hometheater/HT-Bypass-Diagram-HTmode.jpg
For 2-channel Music:
http://erikt.cts.com/Pictures/hometheater/HT-Bypass-Diagram-2chnlmode.jpg
No muss, no fuss, no cable swapping.