Question about Samsung HT J7500wm head unit capability

Hi everyone
Hoping someone might be able to help with this one.
Basically I currently own the Samsung HT J7500w home theater system which has the wireless rear speakers. Over the last couple of months I have had all sorts of issues with the rear speakers not working, flashing blue and red light on the SWA 7000 receiver, repairs attempted but no joy. Even found a replacement receiver on Ebay only for that one to go faulty after a few days (a common issue apparently with this receiver).
Anyway I'm now thinking of a complete change and getting a separate av receiver and 5.1 speaker kit. So my question is, could I use just the main head unit/blu ray player from my samsung home cinema and via HDMI/optical run that to the av receiver and let that do the work of producing the 5.1/dolby/DTS soundtracks from films etc?
I have noticed there is an option in the Samsung settings to either select for sound output: Home theatre speakers or TV speakers. So presumably I'd need to select TV speakers option even though it'd be going to an external AV receiver first.
Has anybody had experience of a similar situation and confirm this can work?
Many thanks in advance