The short answer is yes, you can absolutely incorporate a very good 2-channel system within your current system, and it's super easy. My strong recommendation would be, if you like the sound of your Macs, buy a stereo preamp that mates well with them sonically, and with one extra pair of interconnects, you're good to go. The Marantz is a huge bottleneck to your 2-channel performance, so you need to get it out of there for good stereo sound. Here's how...
You just run an interconnect from the front L/R preouts from the Marantz to the HT pass through on the stereo preamp (or any unused line-level input if there's no HT bypass), then run an interconnect from the outputs of the stereo pre to the inputs on the Macs. Then move your stereo source output also from the Marantz input to an input on the stereo pre. That's it -- you're done!
The only thing is that if your stereo pre doesn't have a HT bypass feature, which is fine, you'll need to set a reference level on the stereo pre for when you're doing HT so the front L/R speakers have the proper volume level relative to your other HT speakers. I just used the 12:00 position on the stereo preamp's volume control because it's easily repeatable, and then reset the channel balance again through your Marantz as usual.
With this setup, when you listen to 2-channel the Marantz is COMPLETELY out of the system and has no impact on sound. I think this is what you were looking for. Hope this helps, and best of luck!
You just run an interconnect from the front L/R preouts from the Marantz to the HT pass through on the stereo preamp (or any unused line-level input if there's no HT bypass), then run an interconnect from the outputs of the stereo pre to the inputs on the Macs. Then move your stereo source output also from the Marantz input to an input on the stereo pre. That's it -- you're done!
The only thing is that if your stereo pre doesn't have a HT bypass feature, which is fine, you'll need to set a reference level on the stereo pre for when you're doing HT so the front L/R speakers have the proper volume level relative to your other HT speakers. I just used the 12:00 position on the stereo preamp's volume control because it's easily repeatable, and then reset the channel balance again through your Marantz as usual.
With this setup, when you listen to 2-channel the Marantz is COMPLETELY out of the system and has no impact on sound. I think this is what you were looking for. Hope this helps, and best of luck!