Which receivers have decent stereo performance?

If I follow Gmood1 advice, I need to unplug/plug the speaker cables when switching from stereo to HT from amp to receiver, right?

Instead of wasting money in a bigger receiver, the suggestion of a separate amp make marked impact in the performance of Soliloqys and will definetly set you square in the path of better sonics, in the future. I might call the purchase of the 1K receiver as a temporary solution, which in the long run will force you to squander more money in the selling and upgrading game. All receivers, used below 1K and the one you are using were built to fit an economic formula in the minds the company, a separate amplifier, as the Monarchy that were suggest has less compromise in their production than a mass produced receiver....and if there is a compromise, it was done accounting the clientele of the buyers who would purchase their amp....people who can be very demanding of the quality that the amp will produce. Simply, go for the amps.

No you want have too unplug anything.Run the interconnects from the preouts on back of the receiver to the inputs of the mono blocks.Take your speaker cables off the receiver and plug one into each amp . Your main speakers will receive the same signal as the rest of the speakers when watching movies.You are good to go!Take a pair of ICs and come out of your dvd player analog outputs into the analog inputs on the back of the yamaha(preferable your left and right inputs for six channel music).This will take the soundfield processing of the yamaha out of the equation.This will give you the best 2 channel sound using the reciever as a preamp.

I'm doing exactly that with my Denon AVR4800: using a separate amp to drive my Martin Logan reQuests by running ICs from the pre-outs of the Denon to the inputs of the amp and then connecting the speakers off the back of the amp. Works GREAT.

For my HT system I went with the NAD 751 (now 752) specifically because of the excellence of its EARS two-channel to 5.1 decoder/synthesizer. Really great ambient feel from two channel sources! I often listen to high-quality FM from my computer chair opposite end of room, well past the surrounds, and the 5.1 mix is FAR better than the squished stereo mode otherwise. For $500 it does yeoman's service in an all-round HT system, but it's tuner section isn't quite up to the level of its best ones of the early 90s Monitor Series, alas. Preamp section's quieter, though. But that EARS programmer gets my daily bravo!