Welcome to the forum, Justin!
I'll admit to being a bit surprised that you don't already have a master volume, but it will help to know what your components are and how you have them connected. It's not unusual (at least for folks here
) to run multiple amps. A typical system will have:
(*) One or more sources (e.g. blu-ray player, TV/cable box)
(*) A pre-amp/processor to process digital signals, select between sources, add any equalization and calibration, and control the master volume
(*) One or more amplifiers to amplify the signals from the pre-amp high enough to drive speakers
(*) Multiple speakers (two or more)
Btw, a home AV receiver combines the pre-amp/processor and amplifiers into a single unit. There are numerous permutations on the above, with some units combining the source/pre-amp/processor/amps into a single unit, and others having amps directly in the speakers.