pre-amps for home theatre....whats your preference?

Shure it will.

For sound quality, Anthem and Arcam.

For features, and knowing they are serious about HT products, Anthem.

The reason I say this is that Arcam seems to get in and out of the HT market while Anthem has been dead serious about it forever and continuously improved their room correction software.

Having said this, I don’t know why you’d buy an Anthem processor instead of a receiver, except for the balanced outputs, since the receiver is usually a grand or more less expensive. This gives you the option of adding as few or as many external amplifiers as you want. 

Would help greatly to know which speakers you bought, if you’re using a subwoofer, and your budget.  Also, is 2-channel music important to you at all or is this strictly a multichannel system?

sure..i just bought this setup:

Klipsch Reference Premiere RP-8060FA towers
Klipsch Ref Premiere RP-504C W center channel 
Klipsch Ref Premiere RP-502S W surround
Klipsch Reference Premiere RP-600M rear surround
Klipsch Ref Premiere RP-500SA - rear atmos
Klipsch SPL-150 x 2 subs