I went from HT 5.1 to 2CH stereo. Piece by piece I dismantled the HT system, which I sold to my brother and replaced it with lusher 2CH components (around an Audio Alchemy solid state system at that time). If I were to do it again, I wouldn't start with HT. But if I had a HT, I would still slowly dismantle it as I did previously. Researching and listening to as many componenets along the way as I could.
I started by retaining my old L/R HT fronts, and bought a used preamp, then saved and bought an amp the next month. That worked for a while, then I replaced the CD source. Utimately I was not happy with the speakers. So the advise to start with speakers that you like and build around them is sound advise. It's silly to buy an amp first. You can certainly try buy an lush, warm, high current amp (doubles wattage at each impedance halving) thinking it will drive any speaker you could possibly buy. But even then, as I found, you still won't always have the correct "synergy."
I started by retaining my old L/R HT fronts, and bought a used preamp, then saved and bought an amp the next month. That worked for a while, then I replaced the CD source. Utimately I was not happy with the speakers. So the advise to start with speakers that you like and build around them is sound advise. It's silly to buy an amp first. You can certainly try buy an lush, warm, high current amp (doubles wattage at each impedance halving) thinking it will drive any speaker you could possibly buy. But even then, as I found, you still won't always have the correct "synergy."