I absolutely love my LPA-1, and it's a step below the IPS. My LPA powers my whole system just beautifully. I bet you'll love the IPS.
I have heard that the Emotiva preamps are solidly built and acoustically excellent, but they may have a few odd software bugs. Things like forgotten settings or thumps when changing from digital to analog inputs, etc. I would pay a visit to the AV123 forums and lurk around over there a bit - lots more Emotiva owners there than here.
I'm using my Pioneer as my preamp, but like Sirquack I suspect that someday I'll be buying an Emotiva preamp as well once the bugs have been all cleared up. All those pretty blue lights are quite addictive!
