I have a venerable Hafler kit amp (DH101) that is, yeah, well, venerable (like me). I'm thinking that I could use it to drive my Wharfedale 8.3 floorstanders for 2 channel use while letting the 1070 drive my little Mirage Omnisats for surround purposes with movies. I may not keep it that way but I was wondering if I could drive the Hafler with the pre-outs and somehow temporarily tell the 1070 to deactivate the L/R front channels. I'm probably just dense but I couldn't figure out how to turn the internal amp off temporarily.

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Give it a try! All you'll need to do is hook the Hafler to the left/right pre-amp outputs and move the speaker cables from the 1070 to the Hafler. The lef tnad right amps inside the receiver won't be shut down, but they won't have a speaker load either.

Ah - the low tech solution. Always the best - simple and quick with banana plugs. I might just run another set of speaker wires from the Hafler to the speakers though, then just unplug one of the Omnisat wires.

That would also give me the option of trying to bi-amp the Wharfedales! Sweet. Thanks.