I'm intrigued by the discussion here since improving 2-channel playback on my 950/7100 combo is something I've been looking into, and I'll definitely be considering a separate stereo pre-amp per the advice above.

What I've been focusing on is improving my source performance (currently a Denon DVD 1600) and what I just did yesterday was order a stereo DAC (the Benchmark DAC-1) to replace the DAC within the Denon (I've found the quality of the analogue pass-through in the 950 from the Denon to be better than using the 950's DACs on the Denon digital signal). I'm hoping this will give me a much better analogue signal. The DAC-1 can also function as a pre-amp, and I'm intrigued about ways to pass the signal through the 950 rather than using the 950 as a pre-amp. This would necessarily make the order Source-->DAC-1 DAC and pre-amp-->950-->7100. I'm not sure how I'd do this though.

Any advice?