Receiver as pre-amp for outboard amplification?

Check out BV-Audio for an economical way to vastly upgrade you system. I just received their P-1 preamp and am awestruck. I have amps on order from another company (before I discovered BV-Audio) or I would opt for their power amp as well. They also make an integrated amp which, based on my experience with their preamp, is no doubt an excellent product.

+1 on what EHart has said,

I have been down this road as well, I used a Marantz 2245 as a pass through pre when i first got into hifi, I realized very quickly that a dedicated preamp makes a world of difference. There are several options depending on what you want to run. You can pickup an older adcom, emotiva, hafler parasound to even a McIntosh for relitivly cheap, I have seen mx119 and C26s go for 600 bucks which is a steal as they are really good preamps that will last you, just becarful with the choice as some of the mx series does not have a phono stage if you into vinyl. The MX series are home theater preamps but works just as good for 2 channel audio. If you are looking for more, I recommend the Usher 307 but it’s pricy, one thing you can count on is higher end preamps will not color your audio, like a lot of the lowerend gear will. E bay is a great place to look for solid preamps.

i bought a marantz 4300 4 chanell reciever back in the early 70's. i wanted more power so for the money, i bought a phase linear 400 amp to power the front chanells and the 4300 to power the rear channels. in 2000 i purchased a mcintosh mc2205 for 2 chanell stereo. in 2010 i purchased a mcintosh mc 602 amp. i used the marantz as a pre amp but it had too much noise. so now i have a mcintosh mx132 for a pre amp. it sounds better with no noise!