DAC/Streamer/PreAmp

Understood, @dmaddox77 . I too keep 2 Ch / “theater” separate. No such convenient DSP AIO’s for stereo-only that I’m aware of. Too bad, since that could be really handy for streaming to one MLP.

@benanders one thing I have come to realize is my wife loves listening to music, so she allows me to turn up the system.  The movie room is closed off, so openi g the door just doesnt do it for me or my wife.  The game room though opens up to the entire house, so the sound is great.  The 2 channel will be in the game room.

@dmaddox77 that is helpful info. No, I would not suggest DSP in your use case; mine is similar and a couple DSP implementation trials seemed unproductive for my goals. My stereo is similarly a whole-(shared-with-spouse)-household feature, and formatted accordingly.

I only listened to Sopra 3’s in one large dedicated room, I liked them.

If I were of your use case (and I was), I’d make sure whatever streamer I land on has software/interface format my wife can happily use before committing (to the streamer, not to the spouse as that’s already been done). I knew I didn’t want her saying the stuff to the streamer app that she used to tell early versions of iTunes run on a PC. Those were hard times… 😜

On a Streamer/DAC unit what format does the streamer hand off the signal to the DAC. Is it USB, SPDIF or something better, as they're in the same enclosure. Eliminating this signal transfer seems to be an advantage over separates. 

@benanders, I have. I am.considering one for my 7.4.4 movie room in the future. I want this to be strictly 2 channel system.

I would never discredit a high quality multichannel prepro for 2 channel listening. They are designed for the pros/integrators (though they have been made available for the average end user these days), i.e., require you to go through a steep learning curve and have significant knowledge base as a end-user. But, if you are able to overcome that learning curve, it is the best tool that exists for 2 channel listening in execution.

Here are some tools that it would offer depending on the brand you went with....Pristine bass management (if you chose that route) or all kinds of tools for blending in a sub. Ask a dude to blend in one subwoofer with a purist preamp. He will struggle. Now, ask him to blend 2 subs. He will struggle a whole lot more. The prepros also offer very accurate time alignment, PEQ, parameters to modulate the soundfield to taste, etc (an endless number of tools), cater things for your specific room and your ears.

Multichannel gear falls apart when you stuff 9 power amps in the same chassis (i.e. the receiver!). But, a prepro processor designed from the ground up with no amp channels, paired with a high end "audiophile" power amp will fix that type of nonsense. The purists fiddled with a barrel bottom receiver and claimed that multichannel gear sounds like buttcheeks next to their supposedly great 2 channel purist gear.

For example, i own an engineering marvel of a prepro from yamaha called the CX-A5200. I also own their 10k purist preamp and a 20k Luxman preamp. If i paired a high end purist poweramp and subwoofers with the 3 above mentioned units and did side-by-side comparisons to dudes, the results (in execution) would be startling to such dudes.

It would be very hard for the average dummy designing/touting purist gear to design a prepro (It would be way too complicated for his wet noodle cranial compartment). Purist design philosophy is all about selling the same sht to the same group of disgruntled/unsatisfied customers over and over (keeping them disgruntled/handicapping them by removing all useful tools for sound reproduction in a room).