Home cinema newbie questions...preamp advice

I'm not sure if you'll really get much out of 3 channels vs Stereo. I find the center channel isn't always helpful, or even noticeable. This is especially true if your speakers image well. I do like having the rear channels however, and for that you need a pre-pro. I'm not sure what your budget is, but there are many pre-pro's on the used market at bargain prices.

can i use the 3rd channel to power the sub?

Richard,

I agree with Bdgregory - forget the 3-channel idea and just go with 2. IMO, get a 2-channel pre-amp to connect to both the audio OUTs of your sat/cable receiver and DVD player. Connect the video OUTs of the sat/cable receiver and DVD player directly to the TV video inputs 1 and 2 (no audio connected to the TV and no video connected to the pre-amp). Be sure to set the sat/cable and DVD players' internal menus to default to "stereo". To answer the question "can i link my TV/LCD directly into a normal preamp?" The answer is don’t - just connect the TV directly to the video sources and use the pre-amp for audio only. Later on you can go one step further and add a powered subwoofer. In that case you could connect the pre-amp to the subwoofer (via RCA), then connect the subwoofer output to the Belles amp (also via RCA). This works great because both the main speakers and Belles are low frequency filtered – just the sub produces the bass. That is what I do for my AV system and it works wonderfully.

John