PrePro or Integrated Receiver 4 Family Ent Center

I just set up my brother's system. His wife didn't want to learn so I showed his 7 year old how to run it. Keep it simple with a little remote for the kids.

From experience, I'd run the whole house system completely independently. Buy a nice little multi-zone receiver from Denon with a solid external amp.

Too often someone has been button pressing in one room of the house and reset my theater settings-keep them separate.

With receiver, receiver w/ pre-out driven by amp, or pre/pro, they all run hot as far as I know. Your amp may run cool, but not the receiver or pre/pro.

With the fan, you will hear the noise, which may defeat the purpose of going separate (assuming these are not balanced cables). Pure clean sound is now adulterated with humming noise from fan. That would kill your investment. If you have lots of headroom for air circulation, you should be OK. May be put in a little vent?

I have Fosgate FAP-T1 and FAP-T1+. 2nd zone can be any source (audio and/or composite video). I have my DVD and Satellite box w/ dual tuners running thru Fosgate out to the patio w/ speakers and 22" LCD. Fosgate has 5" or 7" display monitor similar to Rotel RSP-1098 or Parasound C1. I use the 5" to monitor what my kids watch on satellite box in the patio. There is a Fosgate FAP-T1 just got listed for dirt cheap, and I do not know the seller. The problem with using a pre/pro like Rotel RSP-1098 or Parasound C1 to watch regualar TV programs all the times plus movies on the weekend and few Wii or XBOX games in between can kill your hi-end equipments pretty fast. Electrical components do not last forever. Repair on these hi-end equipments w/ old technology, such as having component video switcher only and lacking HDMI 1.3, can sometimes make you scratch your head as in, "Is it really worth it?"

HDMI receivers w/ pre-out, satellite radio, and ipod hooked up are fractional of a hi-end pre/pro. If you don't listen to music, yet watch movies more, dual subwoofers can rumble your place and make the kids drop their jaws. The reason I mention all this b/c you wrote 4 Family Center. HDMI cables don't come w/ snake and oil like analog cables that cost more than gold bar or copper pots and pans, as far as I know the binary digital world.

Now you have all the info, the question now becomes how deep is your pocket? :> )

Best regards,

Check out the Emotiva pre-pro that is soon due for release/sale. Impressive to say the least. Price, features, quality will stomp other products that would cost double or even triple. Very tempting indeed.

I had a cinepro 3k6 amp for a while. Great amp but when I put it in a cabinet, it would overheat and the internal fans would come on. When they come on they usually willmake a static noise thru the speakers which was too much for me to handle. So either way your gonna have heat issues if you put it in a cabinet. That said, no receiver on the market, even the $5000 denon is gonna sound near as detailed or powerful as that cinepro amp. Get a integra 9.9 preamp and call it a day IMHO.