used amp or amps for B&W 801's in home theater

Overkill??? If you are just looking for home theater and you do not have a designated home theater room per say and this is going to be integrated within your family room..yes this might be overkill IMHO. You could be just as well off with a nice pair of B&W CDM series or the 602 or 603 series bookshelfs on stands with a nice sub for the low end and a matching center channel speaker which is very important in home theater. I was very happy with this type of setup for my movies until I went 2 channel for more of a musical setup.

If you are looking towards the amps for the 801s I would suggest Bel Canto REF500s or McIntosh MC252

For your home theater use you will use your pre-outs on the Elite to interconnect to your power amp which will drive your B&W...I would suggest nothing less than 250wpc to run those speakers. There is all kinds of discussion on which because of the sound they produce etc and its really towards the ear you have for music and sound reproduction. For the movie experience its really not going to matter as much because movies are recorded a bit differently and your Elite will drive those sounds to its destination accordingly. You can use mono amps as well like Bel Cantos or McIntosh that will drive those speakers with ease. I personally use B&K reference 200.7 to run my speakers using the preouts on my Elite because I need the extra juice to drive them.

Jiminee crickets...A room that size you will need two subs or at minimum a JL Audio Fathom 13 or SVS PB13 Ultra just to achieve the bass from movies. No speaker can fill a room that size with authority or support of bass management. If going the B&W route I would highly suggest the HTM1 center channel and get a three channel amp to run power to your 801s and the center channel. I suggest the McIntosh MC303 as it will be your power source to run these efficiently.