That was a good suggestion using the headphone output. I ended up running jumpers from the headphone circuit board to the back of the receiver and installed RCA jacks (made my own preamp). Tested them the other day just for functionality and they work great. Only down side is I cannot run the new preamp output and have phones in at the same time (never use the phones anyway). As long as the amp is off the phones work fine. As for the amplifier, I have not received it yet so I don’t know if it will make a difference. I am looking into upgrading the tower speakers, considering maybe building my own. Thanks guys.