Home theater bypass - pass through question

@reubent  Thank you so much for the help. Shoot me a PM and I'd be happy to send you my favorite ale or nipper or whisky :-)

@millercarbon Are you suggesting I replace my center and surrounds with subs? 
FWIW I already have 4 subs. 

@flavo  - I do enjoy a nice stout or porter. However, it's not necessary. I'm more that happy to help when I can.

@millercarbon Are you suggesting I replace my center and surrounds with subs?
FWIW I already have 4 subs.

Excellent. Its not so much suggesting replacing center and surround with subs. Obviously they serve completely different functions. The suggestion is more there are better results to be had with stereo than HT.

If all you are doing is watching movies and watching movies only then surrounds might make sense. Watching movies is primarily visual and so the loss in sound quality is hardly even noticeable. Especially since its never compared with anything but video sources.

You however are also listening to 2ch music. In this case surrounds and HT in general is full of downsides with not a single upside anywhere to be found. Already you are running into them. I fought them for years before finally realizing even the movies sound better with 2ch than surround. So my suggestion is transition from HT to 2ch.

For example you could right now have better sound simply by running 2ch from your video source direct to your stereo pre-amp, cutting out HT altogether.

As to your exact question, whether it needs to be on or not, yes this is just a design choice.

@flavo  - Hey Mike. Since you already have an amp/pre-amp and the 2-channel rig's front speakers, you can try the combo system now, using what you have. The only difference between using what you have now, is that you will need to set the volume control on your pre-amp to a pre-defined position, such as "top dead center" or "7" or whatever. Just remember that every time you choose the HT source, you'll need to set the pre-amp volume control to that pre-defined position.

So, with what you have today, remove the front L&R speaker cables and speakers from your HT receiver. Run a pair of interconnects from the L&R front pre-outs of the HT receiver into an unused line-level input on your 2 channel pre-amp. Turn on your HT receiver. Set your pre-amp source selector to the new input you are using for the HT front speakers, turn the pre-amp volume control to the pre-designated position, run your HT receiver's setup routine. 

That should have you set up to power your L&R front speakers via the amplifier and speakers from your 2-channel setup.

The only additional complication of this setup, vs having a pre-amp with an HT bypass, is you have to remember which line level input you used for HT front and you need to set the volume control to the correct pre-designated position when you play HT, or the front speaker volumes will be off relative to the surrounds/center speaker.

I hope that make sense to you. Anyway, it doesn't cost anything to experiment. If you don't like it, put it back the way it was before.

Good luck, and enjoy.