Combining home theater with two channel


I have a 7 channel home theater system. In my system, I have Marantz 7706pre amp, Emotiva XPA-Differential 3 channel(450 wpc) driving my golden ear R1s and center channel, XPA-4 (275 wpc) driving surround speakers. When I switch to 2 channel to play music, I’m just not impressed with the emotiva.
My dealer suggested that I add an integrated amp to the system to play music.  The krell K-300i. I just have a hard time understanding how can a 150 wpc amp pack more of a punch than a 450watt amp. 
peytoni
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. 

I used to have my 2 channel integrated along with the HT stuff. I just switched cables at the speaker. A PITA but it worked well.