i am trying to have it both ways in regards to surrond sound and audiophile experience. i have a new harmon kardon thx surrond sound reciever that i am running from blu ray dvd via HDMI and connected to tv via HDMI. have seperate sub, center speaker and surrond speakers. i would like to integrate my audio research amp, pre amp and vandersteen model 4 into this system to where the front channel speaker would be powered by the audio research equip into the vandersteens and the surrond aspect would be played throught the harmon kardon AVR to center channel and rears. can this be done? thank you in advance.

This is a function called HT Bypass but I do not know if your AR preamp has this capability.

no my AR pre amp does not have this feature. this is an older model preamp with very limited inputs. i.e. cd, cd direct, phone, aux, etc.

no my AR pre amp does not have this feature. this is an older model preamp with very limited inputs. i.e. cd, cd direct, phone, aux, etc.Does it have a stepped volume control? If it does, you can use that to simulate the HT Bypass quite effectively. I used to do that with an old Meridian analog preamp.

i am sure how to output from the harmon avr reciever to the audio research pre amp. i am running hdmi from dvd and cable box to harmon reciever. i dont think i can output from both the coax on the dvd and the outputs of the hdmi at the same time. what are your thoughts with this?

HDMI from digital sources to HK. L/R analog preamp outputs from the HK to the AR. All the other channels from the HK to the speakers.

there are no pre amp outputs from the harmon kardon avr. can i output this from the tape output on the avr to the pre amp.

there are no pre amp outputs from the harmon kardon avr. can i output this from the tape output on the avr to the pre amp.Too bad. No useful solution.