Basic Questions

Soix nailed it! Very easy to have 2 channel sound separated out from your home theater using the same pair of main speakers w/ that scenario. I suggest you get a good integrated amp w/ a good phono amp & home theater bypass. You can connect your CD player, streamer /,DAC, turntable etc directly to the new amp & play music with your receiver & TV off & not in the signal path at all.  When you want to watch movies both the receiver & the new integrated are on. 
 

I do exactly this in a pretty high end system but chose to go with a tube integrated so to save tube life, I don’t bother turning on the integrated if just watching basic TV & not movies & just utilize the receiver w/ the center channel, 2 surrounds & sub on  . Works great. Then if I  want to watch a movie or show where sound matters, turn on the integrated & get the full effect. My turntable/ phono amp & my DAC ( w/ both my streamer & CD transport) are both directly connected to my integrated amp. Effectively, two systems in one. 

Home Theater Bypass is your friend. Use the AVR (or better yet separate processor and amps) for home theater and use an integrated as suggested or separate amps and preamp for two channel. HTBP allows you to divert the two mains to HT use and offers much better sound quality for two channel listening. There's a lot of electronics stuffed into an AVR and a lot of compromises to get all that stuff in one box. 

Thank you all for sharing your considerable knowledge and experience.

Having playing around with speaker placement, AVR sound programs, and having to take the AVR to 90% volume to start to get a little life from my new Personas, I know I need to start building a (relatively) separate 2ch system.

I’m going to start with the Anthem STR integrated and build my knowledge and system from there.

Gratitude to all for your help! 🙏

Congrats!  I’m sure you’re gonna hear significant improvements with the stereo integrated.  By all means, please report back once the Anthem is burned in. 

AV equipment normally does not have the audio quality of a 2 channel stereo system and many AV receivers do not have a phono amp. The Rega Brio R would outperform the best AV receivers and the Rega Elex R is the minimum quality SS amp I would use, Adcom.also makes great SS amps.