Thanks for the response, it sounds like i am in a similar situation... I think that, perhaps I will look in the old equipment storage and maybe drag another receiver out and hook them both up...
Enjoy!
At one point, I had a really weak Sony AVR running the front channels with it's built in amp, my bought in 1971 Panasonic SA-6500 receiver running the back L+R speakers, the old Pioneer amp running the left and right surrounds. I didn't have a center for a while and it was ok until I got it, then watching Predator one night, the Sony shut down repeatedly, and I soon replaced it with the Yamaha. I was using the original SVS speakers, I think they were SVS-1's?, and I can't imagine what the Sony would have done running, or attempting to run my old AR setup. My front AR-94's were run off, at first one Carver M-400 amp, then a second one, both monoed out. I had some pretty big surround speakers back then, AR-38's? Long time ago, so many model numbers. That setup really sucked up the power in my basement, which was large and had a lot of sound deadening. Sadly, a blown water heater over a weekend away from home, with the massive amount of humidity in the basement destroyed all my speakers due to warpage and one of the surrounds nearly cracked into two pieces and fell off the shelf! I moved all my equipment, it survived 100% to a spare bedroom. Sadly, another casualty of the water heater was my immense VHS tape collection. Hundreds of movies along with news footage from Vegas TV stations, and several T-120 cassettes of nothing but local Vegas ads from 1979 until early 1982. Some of those ads were amazingly strange.