Hi satfrat, The sunfire has level control for all 7 channels, as I stated the side channels are derived from front L/R channels and not the rears as is the case with a lot of pre/pros. This works out best for me as it wraps the front action around me and give huge front soundstage and brings music a new life on lots of recordings (rock, newage, ect.) and is just plain FUN! As to your questions, You may want to check out and give lots of thought and research to the many new Pre/pro's on the market, with the shape of your room you may need delay for side channels, theatergrand II only has level adj. (don't know about theatergrand III), also if I run my fronts as large, my sides are large (this is fine in my system) but may not be in yours? check out the Lexicon pre/pros and also Meridian for maybe a better answer to your room setup needs. If you like tube amps for your front L/R speakers you can do that (make sure they have enought power for your needs). As far as side speahers go in your system I'm going to guess that you have your system setup on the short wall for your fronts, if this is the case you may want to raise the side speakers up so that the are not right on top of you, I would say di-poles would work best if we were talking about movies, but we're talking about music so mono-poles may be best? (hard to say). Bi-polers may be just the ticket in your case. As far as adding more channels, you can add as many as you want but must remember (they would only be a copy of the channel you added them to with no real info. or level adj. of their own unless provided for in the pre/pro). I would set up on the long wall if you could in a room like yours, this would give you much more choice and freedom of side channel speaker type and placement (My other room is almost the same size). In this setup you could move your rear floorstanders to the sides and add some smaller speakers to the rear of any type you need. I'll explain my setup a little bit so you'll understand why what works for me , may not work for you in your room. I built a new room last year: My system is setup on the long wall (27 ft.) and fires into the short wall (22 ft.), my couch is somewhat centered in the room. This gives my great flexability in speaker placement and all speakers are around 9 ft. from me in this setup, it also allows all speakers to be at ear level for sacd and dvd-audio multichannel music (you should hear the Beck sacd in this setup). This is why I think long wall setup would be best for you in your room if you can swing it. I use a Bent audio passive pre/amp incorporated into this system for two channel listening and the sunfire as pre for movies and multichannel music. Front channel amp is a Krell Ksa-250 which drives my Vmps super tower/r's for L/R and a Krell Kav-500 drives my center, side, and rear speakers (Vmps 626's). I have an Onkyo M-504 power amp that drives my Vmps sub for LFE. Sony XA777es is my multichannel player for sacd's and Technics Dvd-A10 dvd audio player does movies and multichannel Dvd-A's. I built this system for high dynamic range movies and multichannel music for this larger room. I still have a small two channel setup in my other room with Apogee centaur minors for the audiophile thing once in a while, very clean and audiophile but not near as much FUN! Hope this helps, Dave
