which is best?

[eddiepollock]

i have just started building hifi seperates as well as incorperating home cinema. i have bought floorstanders with compatable surround sound speakers but my dilema is this.......

do i buy a kick ass amp for the stereo and a dvd player with 5.1 & dts encryption built in or do i buy an av amp with it all built in?

primarilly i want a great stereo but i dont want to get crap dts etc..but like wize i dont want great dts with a naff stereo,

which is the happy medium??

[Just]

A decent two channel amp to drive the fronts, coupled to a 5.1 amp with pre-outs. This way stereo audio is handled by the more capable two channel amp and the DD/DTS etc is handled by the 5.1 amp, which it should be best at.

Generally the processors inside DVD players are poorer than an amps, but this depends on the budgets for each of course.

The above is of course the ideal, a decent 5.1 amp may well be cheaper and perform on both fronts admirably. The other thing to remember is that you won't be able to buy a 5.1 decoding player and a stereo amp alone to get surround sound. You will always need a 5.1 amp whether the dvd player decodes or the amp does.

Good luck however you decide to do it.