[hallb76]

Thanks for the opinions on the emotiva. I have heard a lot of good things about them but for some reason I haven't heard many consumer opinions of the outlaw amp. The emotiva seems like overkill for the little speakers I'm going to connect to it. I haven't found a suitable used preamp but I did find a Marantz SR4001 refurb that has pre-outs for $320shipped to go along with the emotiva.

For some reason I left out the second part of my original post. Would I be better off getting something like the Onkyo 805 that will drive a 4 ohm load instead of the seperates? I hesitate to spend on an AVR because I don't think it will sound any better than my soundcard. The card has a strong 24/192 DAC and I also replaced the opamp with the national 4562 opamp. It sounds far better than my onkyo txsr504or my old denon avr2800. If I'm going to spend I'd rather some of the cost go toward a more long term solution. The only drawback to the card is that Power DVD down samples HD audio from 24/96 to 16/48.