Combining home theater with two channel

Yup! your in for a treat with the Jc5 is just a special amp indeed!
As for those who tend to down play "good sound " with a pre/processor it’s not as black and white as they say, pro’s and con’s are prevalent with both depending on listening habits. Few years back in simplifying my setup using a Marantz 8802 and now 8805 with an Halo A21 for my mains the 2/ch playback is was nothing to sneeze at via XLR’s using Pure Direct mode. Most of my listening is 2/ch 80% percent, before adding a dedicated preamp with Bypass I thought I’d try to eek the last bit of performance out of the Marantz setup by adding an external dac in this case a Gustard dac A18 and few months later stepping up to the Jc5 and also adding a GIK ceiling cloud overhead to finish off my room’s acoustic treatments. The biggest pro for this setup and for me is the Marantz prowess to decode a "Native DSD" signal ! I have a ton of Sacd’s and while now using the Gustard’s AKM 4499 dac’s to handle redbook and soon my Hi Res streaming I’m in 2/ch bliss as the sound is just flat out good ! I have 2 dedicated lines terminated with Furutech Ncf and AQ edison outlets and good cabling through out as a supporting cast.
The JC2 bypass can wait a bit as what is said to be not good is well? Good!

It was just more enjoyable and less fussy for me to separate the music system from the HT system.

Even then, the HT eventually went 2ch. Always felt the sound antics got in the way...was too conspicuous...for me. 

In Parasound's terminology JC used to indicate that John Curl was involved in the design of a component.  Wonder if that's true of the JC 5.  I have 3 JC 1 monoblocks (400 watts @ 8Ω, 800 watts @ 4Ω) and a JC 2.

I did the same. I just purchased a Townshend Allegri Reference preamp which should arrive soon. I'll hook my turntables phono preamp and my Model 12 monoblocks interconnects to it for 2 channel analog.

Until I by a separate DAC, I'll use the DAC in my Classe SSP-800 processor. It supports 24/192 but down samples the signal to 24/96. It is a 2009 DAC but it still is very good. 

I have the Node 2i streamer for Qobuz but don't use its DAC(so I can't get above 24/96).  Yes, the Node is a 24/192 DAC but I suspect it isn't as good of a DAC as the SSP-800's Burr Brown 24/96 DAC chips.  So i may just pass through the signal through the Classe to the Allegri pre and out. 

I've read many posters who did not think highly of the Node 2i's DAC and bought a
Benchmark DAC 3B or the like. That may be in my future. 

If the Node 2i's DAC WAS better than the Classe's, I'd hook my Node 2i straight to the Allegri.
I may experiment with both connections. The President of Classe, Dave Nauber, opined that he thought the SSP's DAC was better than the Node 2i's DAC. 

My Marantz BD8002 BR/CD player brings up a question: Do I go directly to the Allegri preamp with analog cables for 2 channel and use the Marantz's 24/192 DAC?

Or go SPDIF(or HDMI) to the Classe and pass through to the Allegri
and use the Classe's 24/96 DAC. 

I would think that the Classe's 24/96 DAC would be superior to the Marantz player 24/192 DAC but I don't know. They are both using 2008 DAC technology. 

@dbphd  The JC5 has John Curl's signature on the front front face plate.