Who is using their receiver as a preamp only?

I used an older pioneer elite with a parasound amp for about a tear until I could afford a preamp with ht bypass. Bought an emo umc1...lot of problems with it so far. Anyways I had fairly good results using the reciever as a processor, just use good cables.

I was curious about Emotiva as a pre, I feel it would not be any better than the receiver I currently have.

I use a Marantz SR7001 A/V receiver as a pre. I've never owned a separate stereo pre, so I don't know what I'm missing, although I am curious about adding a Peachtree Nova.

Boat anchor the reciever and do yourself a major favor. You an get a Mapletree for under 1K and the AES AE-3 upgraded to the hilt both brand new. The AES will cost a bit than 1K I would chose either over a pedestrian reciver. That is unless you need to decode and processing. If this is your first outing with a preamp make it a good one. I can think of others much less than 1K the early Classe's the Nikko beta (very good) the Aragon 24AU, even the original but really versatile and serious Accuphase 200 I think. I saw one recently for about $800. Great sound there are so many choices why use a reciever? Just asking? I imagine its OK but not much more given the way the whole reviever sounds.

In my secondary set-up I use a Pioneer VSX-D601. In addition to my preamp it serves as my phono stage and a tuner. I didn't want to go too crazy spending all sorts of $ on various components with my secondary set-up so I opted to use the VSX-D601. To my ears it is doing a fine job. The Pioneer Elite or some Pioneer models in general really aren't that bad quality wise. I wouldn't give up on that Pioneer Elite yet. What model # is it?