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

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.

Are the B&W 801 or 802 over kill for Home theater only? Also what model number for the amps?

Overkill??? If you are just looking for home theater and you do not have a designated home theater room per say and this is going to be integrated within your family room..yes this might be overkill IMHO. You could be just as well off with a nice pair of B&W CDM series or the 602 or 603 series bookshelfs on stands with a nice sub for the low end and a matching center channel speaker which is very important in home theater. I was very happy with this type of setup for my movies until I went 2 channel for more of a musical setup.

If you are looking towards the amps for the 801s I would suggest Bel Canto REF500s or McIntosh MC252

home theater dedicated room 25' by 25' all open but use half for pool.