Personally I would stick with a 2 channel setup, first of all because of the rather large amount of money involved in a decent 5.1 system. Your choice however!

What I have done in my mancave is have 2 systems: one is 2 channel with my old Large Advents and the second home theater of 3.0 with L/R and a Center channel, all Triangles; Cometes and a Sexton CC. I may add a sub at some point, but for movies this works for me as I really don't care about action or sound effects from behind me. The HT Receiver is a Pioneer Elite VSX21, which for movies and the number of music DVDs I own is excellent...to me any way.

I listen to music way more so the HT set up was just to improve the sound mated with my 42" Philips HDLCD tv.

As you know it is easy to drop much money on HT, but if you are a movie lover it may be just the right ticket for you.

Check Accessories 4 Less for some great deals on receivers, processors, amps, players, and speakers.

As you know this market is crowded with product and easy to get lost. I would go back and read as many of Dr. Rubinson's articles on HT as you can. Great info.

You will also have to decide how important BluRay may be to you.

Usually a two channel system implemented through an home theater system relies on a HT bypass. One way it is implemented is with a stereo preamp which has HT bypass like the Emotiva USP-1 or Parasound 2100. This way the stereo preamp is connected to the AV receiver and the HT signal is routed through the stereo preamp to the front/main channels amp and speakers when watching movies. This feature is disconnected when listening to two channel material with the stereo preamp. Another is having an AV receiver or preprocessor with a direct stereo bypass. This essentially allows two channel material to be played through the AV receiver/preprocessor to front/main channels and no stereo preamp is used. If your current preamp does not have HT bypass then you can still do a cludge HT bypass setup with a passive RCA jack input/output switch. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=988009

Quote:
Hello,
I have a 2 channel setup that i would like to expand for movie purposes.
My current setup goes:
[Audio Sources] >> [Preamp] >> [Monoblocks] >> [FL/FR Speakers]
What I'm looking for is:
[A/V Sources] >> [Surround Sound Processor] >> [Monoblocks] >> [FL/FR Speakers]
........................................................................ >> [Amp] >> [Center/Surround/Woofer Speakers]

So from the SSP, the connections will be split between the monoblocks for the Front Left and Right, and the Amp would get the other speakers. Is this setup possible? Can the SSP do the job? I would still like to have the 2 channel stereo quality that I would have with my pre-amp...and from the bit I have read, that means I would need a very very good SSP. Would you do it a different way?

Thanks.

I do not know what your budget is but you need an SSP with a superb analog function to equal what you can do with a less expensive stereo preamp that has a HT bypass. The Classe SSP, for example.

Also, I would match the front 3 amps either by getting 3 monoblocs or a really good 3 channel amp. That will not affect stereo performance, of course, but it will greatly enhance MCH performance.

Kal

Kal -

Fanboy note. Your piece in the new issue is invaluable.

tks,

Scott A.

Quote:
Hello,
I have a 2 channel setup that i would like to expand for movie purposes.

For movie purposes matching center channel speaker or amps is desired but not critical IMHO.

I was a bit confused as to what a "HT Bypass" actually is until I found a posting by Robert Harley describing his reference system. Robert's Spectral preamp has an HT Bypass input which, when selected, passes the L/R signals to the outputs at a fixed unity gain.

So in the OP's system, the connections would be:

[Audio Sources] + [SSP FL/FR] >> [Preamp (SSP FL/FR to HT Bypass input)] >> [Monoblocks] >> [FL/FR Speakers]

[A/V Sources] >> [Surround Sound Processor] >> [Amp] >> [Center/Surround/Woofer Speakers]