I'm about to crack open my box this weekend upon receiving my Denon 4311 tomorrow

Actually only one XPA5 is mine, the other one is for my cousin which he tumpang me to purchase. I will be using the 4311 in preamp mode to power the front channels, and set up extra zone to power the rear surrounds. I read the manual and the 4311 can do FH/FW Could consider adding some Klipsch RBs for fun in the future.

Initially I wanted to get the AV7005 but decided to opt for 4311. I could add an xpa3 to drive the fronts but nah, I'd just power the extra surround with the receiver

AFAIK yes, you can run the amp in preamp mode and assign zone2/3 to additional surround. Audyssey still works. That's what I read on AVS and I also set the AVR to do so but haven't connected the speakers yet. This is one other reason why I chose the 4311 over the 7005 as I don't need additional amp to power my 2 more surrounds

SVS' pricing is relatively high even in NA, few of their subwoofers are now selling over 500USD more than just a few years ago. My initial choice wasn't even SVS but HSU VTF15 however shipping kinda killed the value part of it so I paid more to grab the SVS locally (400usd additional premium for shipping, duties, and taxes to my place for the VTF15). Rythmik is also a very serious contender and most of the time these 3 would get mentioned whenever someone is looking for a subwoofer and I'd say most of the time in the USA people would go with HSU as the very first choice. People who shop in big box store would tend to go with Velodyne which is also significant value for money. Competition is really intense and SVS is definitely losing some appeal.

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: May 28 2011, 09:20 AM

I believe the amp section of the AVR is modular. In the sense that zone 2/3 spot different modules. So even if you had the extra zone running, I can't imagine how much "contamination" you'd get since 80% of the amp section is not running. Once I got my speaker wires in I'll hook em up to do a quick test. I believe other owners may shed some light on this, I just got the receiver and I was assured in AVS that it would work as I mentioned