get a nice tubed pre - for the money, it's the most cost-effective way to get good digital sound. a great pre & a $500 cd player will beat a great cd player run straight-in, everyday, imho, even if the cd-player was designed to be run straight-in. of course, the great cd-player may be better than the $500 unit, when run thru the pre, but it's yust not cost-effective - yule get very little improvement. besides, why dump a lot of money into a digital format now - who knows what the record companies will be making in a year from now? and, a great preamp should improve *all* your sources...
doug
ps - if ya want to keep the h-t processor, there are many pre's w/a default processor loop that allows the processor to control *all* the speakers, when in h-t mode; when listening to audio-only, the h-t electronics are not in the signal-path...