Thanks for the feedback. The amp works. Got it connected using my phone and the 1 male rca to 2 male rca wire. I don't know why my CD changer won't work yet.
So if I want to use my power amp and only have an avr with no preamp outs, is there any choice but to purchase a receiver w preamp outs? Are there any other choices?
Since you are not using this for video, a two channel preamp will do the trick, as long a you don't want to connect digital sources. There are a few pre amps out there with digital inputs but they are spendy.
AV receivers tend to be lousy devices for driving distributed audio system.
In fact your type of system is now dated. They are pretty awkward inconvenient and useless now.
In this era people are going to systems like the Sonos system.
If it were me I would not be devoting energy to one of yesterday's systems like that. There never has been anything to recommend them.