I have Polk Monitor 70 front speakers, Polk CS2 center channel, Polk Monitor 60 for Rear speakers and a Velodyne sub. I have a budget of about $1200 and I would like to know what Amp/PreAmp processor or receiver I should buy.

Does anybody wish to help guide me on this adventure?

Since we're in the saloon, I'm going to start by looking at what Outlaw offers in your price range. All three speakers are 90dB efficient, 8 ohm speakers, so you shouldn't need a really huge amp to drive them (not like the LSi15 and LSi25 that have been found to be very power-hungry speakers). A Model 7125 should serve you very well indeed, and a Model 7075 could probably even do the trick depending on the room size. Based on that, you could do any one of the following four options:

• Model 970/Model 7075: $999
• Model 970/Model 7125: $1278
• Model 990/Model 7075: $1289
• Model 990/Model 7125: $1598

The Model 990 offers better sound (higher grade DAC's) and a few more setup options (input labeling, the ability to assign component and DVI inputs to any video input, automatic speaker setup) compared to the Model 970, but both will provide very good sound quality relative to the typical surround receiver.

There are some other factors to consider, still. What sources are you using? What display do you have? What other upgrade plans might you be considering? Those can all influence your decisions.

I have Cable TV, DVD players, and VCR as input devices. Eventually I plan to add Blueray player sometime next year. And eventually placing the system in a room big enough for 7.1 system which means I will be adding surround speakers.

Is the 7075 and 7125 high current amps? Do high current amps make a difference?

I don't know that "high current amp" is an especially well defined baseline, but if you are comparing either amp to the amp section of a typical receiver you will find that the Model 7075 and 7125 are much more robust designs. The galleries on Outlaw's site don't include any pictures under the hood of either amp, but I've got some 7125 pictures here that will show you how both amps are built. The power supply is larger than you'll find in a typical surround receiver (with all of the power going to the amps, since there's no other systems present to need any current), the amp channels are more substantial, and the heat sinks are much bigger. Both amps are rated with all channels driven, while most receivers are rated with one or maybe two channels driven. The difference between the two approaches is largely a result of power supply: these amps can provide enough current to their channels to drive multiple channels to a high level simultaneously. This will come up if you look at the reviews for these amps (links available for both the Model 7125 and Model 7075 ). One example for the 7075 is the bench test from Sound & Vision: a single channel driven to clipping produced 102W at 8 ohms and 163W at 4 ohms. That's well above the rated 75W at 8 ohms and 115W at 4 ohms. Even when driving five of the channels at once at 8 ohms, each channel could provide 92W before clipping (about 23% more output than the rating). Receivers are built to do that because of the space required and the cost required. An example of when can become important is when a system must react suddenly to large shifts in output (such as an explosion in an action movie) and the current demands change very rapidly.

When laying out wire for your speakers does it make a difference the wire length to each speaker? Should the wire length all be the same? Or does the pram-processor compensate for this?

I will probably be buying the 990/7125 in the next couple of months.

There isn't any reason to make all of the speaker wires the same length.It's far more important to the sound to keep the speakers about the same distance from your listening position.
The 990 doesn't have parametric equalization, but it will allow you to compensate for distance differences in speaker placement and speaker volume settings either automatically or manually.

KOYAAN's exactly right. The processor has a feature to compensate for differences in speaker distances from the listening position by allowing you to tell it the distances for each speaker (roughly 1ms of correction per foot takes care of this, with closer speakers needing delay so they match up with more remote speakers), but that's dealing with the speed of sound as the sound waves travel from speaker to ear. The signals in the wires are going much faster, and the time required to travel along five feet of wire compared to 50 feet of wire isn't a number you need to concern yourself with.

Should a Home Theater system use a power condition or a UPS?

A UPS is going to be expensive due to the current draw involved, and it will be only good for a short time unless you get a really big battery. Some folks do it, but I'd hardly consider it a necessity. I do think that some good surge protection is smart, though. I got a Belkin unit on significant discount a while back (list price is absurdly overpriced), but there are plenty of other options out there from folks like Tripp-Lite, Panamax, or Brick Wall.

Agree w/gonk...surge protection is a life saver - I had one save my system years ago while two lamps on the same circuit were fried. A UPS is really only a necessity if you have a front/rear projector that has a sensitivity to being shut off without cool down time.