It's gonna be awhile before I can go full separates.. (house payment, home improvements, girlfriend, etc..) I have an old Onkyo DPL receiver with no external inputs, so I can't just slap a 950 on top of that.

Option 1)
I was thinking of getting a 1050 now, followed by a 950 sometime next year for DPL2 and the extra DD,DTS and bass management options, followed by 7 channels of dedicated amplification after that.

How well do you think the 950 would work going through the 1050's 5.1ch analog bypass inputs? The 1050 would become the amp section for the 950 until I could afford some decent amps.

Option 2)
Go with a denon 2802 for now, then external amps, then see if I'd even need the 950 later on. The 2802 DPL2 and more DTS/DD options, but I'm still kinda digging the 1050.

Has anyone compared sound quality of the 1050 and the 2802? The 1050 seems to be built like a tank and the remote is better. My NHT speaks need a lot of juice. How do the amp sections on the two compare?

Thanks for any input!

Twice now I've started replies to this and had IE die on me... :\ Let's try it again.

1) 950+1050 -- It can be done, although it'll take some work to get the volume control on the 1050 in the right spot (putting two volume controls in line like that can be tricky) and you'll only have five channels of amplification. See this thread for a little more talk on the subject. I don't know if I'm quite as wary as I was then about it, but it is certainly not ideal.

2) I haven't ever heard the Denon 2802, so I can't offer much there. MrSandman had some thoughts on the subject here , though -- they might be helpful.

As for power, I will say that the 1050 packs quite a punch for the 65W rating it carries.

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Gonk