No offense, George, but I would never recommend doing what you've suggested. One lapse in memory (or one well-intentioned spouse forgetting to unplug something), and you're looking at potentially $eriou$ damage to your equipment. Also, the constant plugging in and unplugging is just additional wear and tear on your gear. My setup is just as Neils mentioned above. Works great, but it entails buying a separate preamp. Musicnut, what's wrong with your system the way it is now? The fact that your center and surrounds are "powered up" while listening to music shouldn't be a problem if no signals are being sent to those channels. My advice would be to do what Neils and I are doing or leave it alone.
Two systems; One amp one set of speakers
This may be a little far out but is it possible to run two systems through one amp and one set of front main speakers. I have a home theatre system but enjoy my stereo the most. I have a denon avr 5600 running pre out front rt and lft to an Aragon 4004 and connected to ML Requests. would it be possible to run,a Y connecter off the rt and lft inputs on the Aragon and connect the preouts from the Denon and pre outs from the DACpre to the Aragon? Is this possible and if so what should I look for as far as sound degredation and potential problems? If this is not possible, is there a way to do this? Thanks