JJB,
I'm a little flattened by your questions about HT, I'm sorry.
I see hifi and HT as two very different beasts and have never given much thought to integrating them. The AKSA was designed as a no-holds barred high end stereo amp, and I never envisaged it would be used in HT applications with their multiformat front end and multiple amp complexities. That's not to say it hasn't happened; Fred S. in TX has an integrated system (hi Fred, I have your package now, many thanks!) and I know of at least two others who have integrated AKSAs into their systems.
But I remain ignorant of what to suggest for a front end, and perhaps someone here with HT experience with the AKSA can help us. I hope so. Suffice to say that the input impedance of the AKSA is nominally 47K, the gain is 31.6dB, or 38, and they are high sensitivity amplifiers, very easy to drive. Most any preamp can do the job well.
The GK1 preamp, like the amps, is designed for high end stereo, but does have a HT bypass switch which directly routes input to output, outside any active preamp circuitry and the volume control. This was included at Fred S.'s request to enable easy integration. Some have suggested this could be a problem if straying fingers should active HT Bypass during playing; the full output of the front end then finds its way to the amp and the speakers get quite a fright, I assure you.... So a few people actually disconnect this switch.
Don't know if this helps, JJB, but it shows the background and gives you some perspective. BTW, while it's possible to integrate a full AKSA stereo system into a HT application, it's tricky, complex, and may turn up some strange incompatibilities with earthing. I really don't recommend it for that reason.
Bob, an AKSA 100W amp will drive a VMPS sub very nicely, thank you!
Cheers,
Hugh