Hi all,

Forgive my newbie question if it's too basic. I'm currently upgrading an entry level system consisting of a Marantz SR7500 receiver with B&W 600 series speakers. I'm getting B&W 703 L+R, HTM7 Cent, 705 for surrounds and backs (all rated to 200W at 8 ohms). I'm mainly using this setup for home theater and not much music. I'm thinking of using the preouts of the Marantz and getting dedicated amps for the speakers. As I don't want to upgrade everything at once if I don't have to, is it reasonable to use the Marantz with the Outlaw 7700 instead of getting a dedicated prepro like the Outlaw 990? Also, if I only care about home theater, is it necessary to get dedicated amps for the surrounds and backs? Perhaps I only need amps for the fronts, like a few M2200s?

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Many people use a receiver as their processor with separate amplifiers - it's a common and completely reasonable approach that only requires the receiver to have pre-amp outputs (which I suspect the SR7500 has). As for whether to get a multichannel amp to drive all of the speakers or just monoblocks to drive the mains, I'd ask what your long-term plans are for a processor. If you want to eventually upgrade to a processor, you will need separate amplification for all channels (won't have the receiver amp channels to use anymore) - in that case, the 7700 would be your best bet. A good amp like the 7700 is an investment can also stick around through multiple upgrade cycles, so you could upgrade the SR7500 to a 990 in a year or so and then a few years later upgrade again (if the upgrade bug happened to find you again) and still continue to use the 7700.

That's a good point gonk, thanks for your advice.

I can attest to the general preamp quality of Marantz units- I've owned an SR-8500 and SR-9600 and the pre's were quite neutral, the slightly "fat" character definitely originated from the final amp section.
Barend