Pre-amp outs

One_shot,

That is what I did with a Denon 3802 surround receiver (it has pre-outs for the front left and right speakers). I hooked up a Bryston 4B-ST stereo amp (RCA out of the Denon into the RCA in of the Bryston). Depending upon the gain of the amp, you might have to recalibrate the loudness of the speakers again (i.e. set the left/right speakers at 0 dB gain and using a calibration disc and SPL meter, adjust the gain of the receiver for each of the other speakers such that they all have the same volume level at the "sweet spot").

Regards,

With the Denon AVR-4800 you can assign via the menu the L/R front amps to the rear (or side? I forgot) L/R channels and by using an external stereo amp connected to the L/R front pre outs thereby going from 5.1 to 7.1 HT. BTW there are pre outs for the other channels too.

Yes you can.

Why not get a 5 channel AMP? Adcom has some out that are not too expencive. Then you can upgrade to a 7.1 pre-amp and eventually get a high quality 2 channel amp for the fronts?

that way you have good solid power for the center and 4 surrounds, and have real good power for the mains while listening to 2 channel?

Audiophanatik:

I thought about that, but im looking for something to fit an extremly tight budget (i.e. fast food job). The center and surrounds arent terribly important to me right now, so im just looking for a way to get more out of my dahlquist's than my cheapo sony 80w reciever can give them. My idea was to find a slightly less cheapo reciever with pre-outs so i could run the mains off a better power amp, probably in the range of 200wpc.

One_shot,

If you are 17, workin on fast food, and already getting into this hobby and upgrading, by the time you are 40 you will probably be like some of the 'gon'ers here who have gone through hundreds of types of equipment! :)

Have you liiked into getting a pre-amp and amp? and keeping the reciever? you would have to swap the cables back and forth from amp to reciever, but its pretty quick if you have banana plugs on em.

I think you oughtta try looking for a used Technics SA-TX50. It has pre-outs, no onboard DD decoder, but for movies this thing really rocks. then you can get maybe a cheap NoRh or Adcom or something and run the mains off of those.
People seem to shy away from technics recievers, but these are pretty decent and they pack alot of power 125w/ch. It could definatly drive you mains more than your sony can, and it has the pre-outs. I personally think it would sound pretty good. Later on as funding gets better, it would be easy to slide into a pre-amp.
I'd sell you mine, but im still using it. Try EBAY, if you do a search on SA-TX50 on yahoo you will be able to find some reeviews on it, most people who buy em are pretty impressed. you might be able to pick it up used for about 200-300.

my 2 cents :)