Flame you, of course not. I use a Lexicon for surround sound. The SP-9 and my regular 2 channel setup is used for conventional stereo. Frankly, it sounds better than the Lexicon when it's running in 2 channel mode. I set my SP-9 for unity gain and use it as a pass through for multichannel sources.
This way I get pure 2 channel and surround from the same system. I have no center channel or side speakers. 4 large ESL's and 3 subs are enough. I get real nice bass though.