"Generally, I wonder if I get !AUDIBLE! better clarity, soundstage, details, and more audiophile sonic quality with one of the amps above over Onkyo 803 in a 2.1 setup where the powered sub will do the most work, or it's going to be the same level or even worse (maybe worse because missing the bass management and DACs??)"
To achieve that, you need to get the HT preamp out of the path. Otherwise you're just wasting your time, because its a huge bottleneck. If your Onkyo has pre in's that allow you to bypass the processor, then you can just get a preamp or maybe even a source that has its own volume control.
"So I am using the build-in DAC (192khz / 24 bit) in Onkyo for 2 channel playback, this way there is no signal loss through analog cable from CD player to amp as well."
That's a mistake. Its a reasonable assumption, but in practice, there's more that can go wrong than right. Unless you need to use very long IC's, signal loss going from your CD player to your preamp is so low that its not a material issue. The dac in your cd player is probably much better than the one in your Onkyo. Also, I can't say for sure, but I think you'll get far less jitter if you let your cd player handle the conversion.
As far as bass management goes, I believe you give up way too much just to have that feature. There's other ways to handle bass. People were integrating subs in their systems long before there was bass management. Its not hard to do.
To achieve that, you need to get the HT preamp out of the path. Otherwise you're just wasting your time, because its a huge bottleneck. If your Onkyo has pre in's that allow you to bypass the processor, then you can just get a preamp or maybe even a source that has its own volume control.
"So I am using the build-in DAC (192khz / 24 bit) in Onkyo for 2 channel playback, this way there is no signal loss through analog cable from CD player to amp as well."
That's a mistake. Its a reasonable assumption, but in practice, there's more that can go wrong than right. Unless you need to use very long IC's, signal loss going from your CD player to your preamp is so low that its not a material issue. The dac in your cd player is probably much better than the one in your Onkyo. Also, I can't say for sure, but I think you'll get far less jitter if you let your cd player handle the conversion.
As far as bass management goes, I believe you give up way too much just to have that feature. There's other ways to handle bass. People were integrating subs in their systems long before there was bass management. Its not hard to do.