How to get 2 Channel and Home theater in one packa

Bdgregory,

My thought was based on the reviews of the 5800 series Denon, which were excellent. I too tried to replace my Proceed preamp/processor and amps with a Sony ES receiver, a 444; openess and transparency were sacrificied, so I switched back to the separates. But I suspect the Denon 5800 serieis is different. It's true, if you have enough things hooked up, a rat's nest seems inevitable. By cluge, I was referring to schemes in which 2 channel preamps are used with multi-channel equipment where level control is an issue.

Although I'm not practicing what I preach, I continue to suspect that a 5800 series Denon would be fine for all but the highest-end applications, and that many of the neigh-sayers have not heard that series in such an application.

db

Eandylee: I agree with your comments about matching speakers. I was fortunate in that my rears used to be my fronts, until I replaced them with much better speakers from the same company.
I have had no incompatibilities with my amps at all (Sunfire 5-channel, 400w into 8 ohms; McCormack DNA-500, 500w into 8 ohms). I think as long as the power is in the same neighborhood, if you like the sound of both amps, they will probably sound OK together for movies, etc. My system sounds seamless for movies. I think speaker synergy is more important, especially between the center speaker and 2 front speakers. More and more speaker companies are coming out with center channel speakers as they also see this crossover market booming.

Kal,
Do you ever feel that running built-in decoder in DVD player into analog preamp (that's exactly what I'm doing with McIntosh C-45), is inferior to using dedicated processor into preamp?