Has anyone confirmed that DPL IIx actually gives unique channels for the rears?

Somewhere I think I saw, (SMR or maybe HTF) it does look like DPL IIx supports "stereo" rears.

A couple more thoughts:

If I was Outlaw, I'd see what it would take to do an Eprom (EEprom?) upgrade to the 950, and then charge $50 - 100 for it. If possible.

And then maybe the 950 mk II or the the big brother would presumably include this. (Along with THX Ultra2, although maybe like DD EX vs THX EX, DPL IIx makes THX Ultra2 less "important" as an option.)

And, a final thought, even though as a relatively new owner of an MC-8 (and former owner of the 950), I see DPL IIx as a good thing. If it comes anywhere close to Logic 7, might cause Lexicon to lower its price of admission for Logic 7. I was always surprised that other than the 8000, none of H/K's receivers had it for 5.1 sources. And then personally, I'd wouldn't be surprised to find out it was an accident for the 8000 as well.

Kevin, Yeah, I confirmed it for you over at SMR. The Dolby FAQ (which you were "too lazy to read") says it explicitly. Might need to swap out the Crystal processing chip, and there's no guarantee that the 950's architecture will support a newer processing engine. However, before even crossing that bridge, Cirrus has to release the appropriate chipset.

One thing nice: the two rear outputs of the 950 are not fixed as dual mono (as on some receivers). You can tell this because each is able to produce a different signal when in 7-channel stereo mode. Seems ready for PLIIx, doesn't it! Accidental (and undocumented) feature on the AVR-8000. The 5.1 signal is first downmixed to 2 channels using Dolby Surround encoding, then upmixed via L7 for 7-channel playback. Very different from how it works on your MC-8 (or any Lex processor).

Sanjay

You're saying Cirrus's processing chip in the 950 might not support PLIIx. But the 950 came out just over a year ago and Dolby themselves suggest, in the twice.com page referenced above (and copied below), that many existing PLII products won't need new chipsets, just flash-memory upgrades in order to support PLIIx.


Onkyo, Integra and Meridian aren't using Cirrus chips to do PLII decoding, are they?

Will

[This message has been edited by Will (edited September 04, 2003).]

Will, No, I said that if implementing PLIIx requires a new chip, there's no guarantee the 950's architecture will support it. We will have to wait and see how Cirrus incorporates the new code into existing processing engines. If it turns out that the 950's processing engine can have its flash-memory upgraded, then there's a possibility that the 950 will support it PLIIx.

The Fosgate FAP-T1 pre-pro, which is based built around the same Eastech model that the 950 is, will be upgraded to the FAP-T1 Plus (PLIIx will be part of that upgrade). You might want to keep an eye on how Fosgate handles the addition of PLIIx because it may indicate how a similar upgrade could be done for the 950.

Since the PLIIx announcement just happened, it's better to take a 'wait-and-see' attitude rather than get excited about an upgrade to the 950 that may never arrive.

Best,
Sanjay

Hi Sanjay,

Thanks for the clarification. And thanks for pointing out there is a pre/pro very much like the 950 that will get upgraded to PLIIx.


I'm trying to keep track of the known clones of the 950 pre/pro. There's one from Atlantic Tech, and one from Sherbourne. And I guess there's this one from Fosgate too? Are there other 950 clones lurking out there?

Thanks,

Will

[This message has been edited by Will (edited September 04, 2003).]

Will,

Some more clarification, this time from Cirrus. Rather than issue a new chipset, looks like Cirrus will be incorporating PLIIx into current chip families. If the 950 has a way to change the software on its decoding engine, the upgrade may be possible. Check out Cirrus' press release .

Also, just as an FYI, Charles Wood of Fosgate Audionics talks about the changes made to the Eastech prototype for their FAP-T1 in this thread ; he addresses the similarity of the manuals a couple of posts down.

Best,
Sanjay

Man, what would we do without Sanjay!

The cheap ATI pre/pro is a 950 clone (the 7500 I think), and at least one of the Adcoms is too.

I also suspect there are some others too, but the look and feature set is being morphed enough that it's hard to tell.

H/K 8000: 5.1 to 2.0 to 7.1 for Logic 7: I did not know that...

Sanjay's a great resource here, and there are others here as well!

I only recently became aware how bass management works on surrounds in DPL II. Over on AVS at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=297444&perpage=20&pagenumber=4 Dolby Lab's Roger Dressler wrote

So I asked him the following:

Kevin, Most AVR-8000 owners didn't either. Amazing how 'discrete' a good matrix decoder can sound when people aren't aware they're listening to only 2 channels. Naturally, when folks found out, they heard "night and day" differences. Never fails. Post in peace?

Best,
Sanjay