you have 804's? nice...
they're fun. i'm still pushing them with a marantz 125wpc receiver though. i just haven't been able to justify the investment it would take to go with separates given how much HT i listen to. i have b&w surrounds and centers as well, but not from the nautilus line. sounds great, and i have run other pre-amps and power amps in my system and while it sounded a little bit better, never stark enough to justify the added investment.
Just do what I did... Keep your receiver for HT. Buy a preamp with a theatre passthrough (and a 2-channel power amp) and run preamp outs on your receiver to the theatre passthrough on your 2-channel pre. Attach your best 2-channel sources to the 2-channel pre, and the HT gear to the receiver. When you listen to tunes, the receiver is out of the picture. When you want HT, you use the passthrough on the 2-channel pre and it locks to unity gain, thereby giving control to your receiver.
This way you have your best gear for your 2-channel rig, but still get the benefit of the (hopefully) superior amplification during movies.
FWIW I run:
Rega Jupiter / Rega P3 / McCormack UDP-1 > Audio Research SP16 > Audio Research VS55 > ProAc D25... For HT I use McCormack UDP-1 > Denon AVR 1802 > passthrough of the ARC SP16. I still have my B&W CC3 and DM302's for surround (I used to have some Nautilii as well).
It works out real well, although there are some caveats. I have been doing it for years now, if you have any Q's.
ok, can't do this for a while until i start working again and figure out where i'm moving, but help me out a little bit.
here's what I have source-wise:
DAT deck, Onkdy DV-sp800 dvd/dvd-a/sacd/dc player, tivo/cable source (right now i don't have a cable box), cassette deck (rarely used), and I'd like to get a turntable at some point.
fed through a Marantz 125 wpc HT receiver (don't know model number)
Kimber bi-wired 8TC > N804's
B&W CC6 S2 (center)
B&W LM-1 for surrounds (great for me cause they came with mounting brackets since i had to put the surrounds up on the wall).
Room is about 23 x 12 with 10 foot ceilings. the system is one of the long walls, but the L and R are only about 12' apart due to doors on that wall and are 3 feet from the wall, toed in.
as I read your post, I need to add (aside from a sub--that comes later, there is no place to really put one right now) a 2 channel pre w/HT passthrough and a 2 channel amp. now would the 2 channel amp always be active (ie, it would still be used even during HT usage) correct?
what suggestions do you have to get this set up? I would like to do it for less than $1500 if possible.
does anything about HT performance or 2 channel performance? 2 channel performance would be more important, obviously, but i don't want to totally sacrifice HT performance.
adding a sub later shouldn't be a problem as I see it.
any thoughts, comments, suggestions would be appreciated. I don't know all that much about this and I do find a lot of this stuff pretty intimidating and this forum isn't always the most friendly...
EDIT to note that I would like to add a 2 channel DAC at some point, but it's not a priority, I like the DAC in the onkyo and the DAC in the marantz is adequate for my DAT right now.