used amp or amps for B&W 801's in home theater

clarification... 801 nautilus, the first series after the matrix.. i was just thinking about amping the 801's and use my receiver for the center and rears. volume should remain the same if i just amp the fronts.correct? or if i just amp the fronts will they over power the rest of the system?

Gz3827

"For any 801, you'll be better served with solid state."

Not totally true. The 801F sounded amazing with an Audio Research D-79B.

"Probably the more power, the better."

Again not totally true. The best I have heard 801s was with 100 watt Class A monos in a very large room.

home theater please not two channel.

Being just a 2 channel fellow without any real HT experience, I don't know the answer to your question about the volume implication of using your a/v receiver to power your center and rears while using a separate power amp for the fronts. Hopefully someone else can chime in on that. Going back to your original post, you may find some other good amp ideas by searching out old online reviews on the 801 Nautilus as reviewers often include commentary amplifier matching. Best of luck!

For your home theater use you will use your pre-outs on the Elite to interconnect to your power amp which will drive your B&W...I would suggest nothing less than 250wpc to run those speakers. There is all kinds of discussion on which because of the sound they produce etc and its really towards the ear you have for music and sound reproduction. For the movie experience its really not going to matter as much because movies are recorded a bit differently and your Elite will drive those sounds to its destination accordingly. You can use mono amps as well like Bel Cantos or McIntosh that will drive those speakers with ease. I personally use B&K reference 200.7 to run my speakers using the preouts on my Elite because I need the extra juice to drive them.