Unfortunately Ray, i don't think the 1803 has any "pre outs" on the backside other than the pre-out hookup for your subwoofer. Some of the more featured units, including the 3803, have pre-outs for mains, surrounds, centre channels as well.
Basically with separate components you are breaking down the a/v receiver into its individual parts such that instead of having one unit that does everything, you now need more than one unit to drive the system. Typically this includes a preamp (handles volume, source switching), a processor (for Dolby, DTS, etc.), the amplifier (for power), a tuner (if you so desire).
Although you can have one component for each of those units, you MAY require more than one amplifier depending on how many speakers you have and what amp you choose. Obviously your 1803 has 5? small amps inside to make it a 5 channel system. The subwoofer being the .1 part has its own internal amp.
Anyway, not to get too far off topic, if you had the 3803 model, you could buy yourself a 2 channel (stereo) amplifier for well under $800 (look at spiff's recent purchase of the Odyssey Stratos) and then run a cable from the
main pre-out on the back of the receiver (go to page 4 and zoom in on the jacks) into the new stereo amp and then have your main speakers plugged into the amp instead of the receiver.
Voila.
You are now essentially running a system with separate components.
Some people like to buy a relatively inexpensive a/v receiver and just use it as a preamp/processor part of their HT setup while using the pre-out channels on the back to hook up all separate amplifiers to actually power their speakers.
The power amps onboard a/v receivers are notorious for being advertised as having power beyond what they realistically put out. However, their DACs and preamp capabilities are still very good and again, cheap for what they can do.
Some separate processors like this
Anthem unit, cost near $4000 Cdn!!
