This doesn't help with your "excuse", but there are "audio over LAN" products such as Squeezebox. Most of these are digital on the server-side.
If you have an unused Ethernet cable in-place already, you can use a pair of [u]baluns[/u] to send audio over the twisted-pairs.
Problem is that my main home theater system is in the living room (where the wife doesnt want the server).
How about an iPod? You can use the analog connection or a dock.
Or, maybe a laptop would be less objectionable. I ended-up with an "extra" laptop, and it's connected to my living-room system. It's also handy if I need to look-up something on the Net. (Unfortunatly, it doesn't have HDMI or a blu-ray player.)