Gonk: agreed. For the moment, I'm going to take this "clone" business, at least in regard to the Adcom and Fosgate units, with a grain of salt. Like I said, the Cirrus/Crystal chip is very popular with A/V manufacturers. The fact that Fosgate does and Adcom may use that chip doesn't automatically make them clones.
Zakman: probably the only reason that the 950 isn't software upgradeable is because it's a design choice; i.e., allowing this feature would have pushed the 950's price point above Outlaw's target. It's like when people wonder if the 950's rear channels could have been stereo? While they're used as a mono pair, you'll notice that they can be set for individual volume levels and (in 7-Channel Stereo mode) they're capable of reproducing individual signals. But paying for surround processing that generates stereo rears (which is not available off the shelf, like PL II or CES or Neo:6 are) would again have made the 950 more expensive.
Hi Will: I got the info about the Rotel from speaking to someone at Rotel re which processor chip they're using for their pre-pro; turns out to be the same as the one in the 950 (same features, same problems). I don't know if you remember, but you brought up Rotel's XS processing a long time ago in a thread at AVS forums. That discussion got me curious enough to investigate.

As for the Fosgate unit using CES, it already came up here at the Saloon in this thread about SMR's CEDIA report. Take a look at this page from the report (the relevant info is in second half of the first paragraph).
Lena: I don't know about PL II originally being 7 channels. When Dolby first announced PL II, they called it a 6:2:6 matrix (up to 6 channels can be folded into a stereo track and then decoded back up to 6 channels). I think they ditched the surround back channel because, at the time, they didn't want to confuse consumers by going beyond 5.1 channels (same reason that DD-EX movies were purposely not labeled as such on their DVD packaging).

Jim Fosgate has said that he has given Dolby enough info to take PL II up to 7 channels as and when Dolby wishes to do so. This isn't at all unusual with matrix decoders; they really can be designed to decode as many channels as the designer wishes. In this AVS thread , Fosgate says some interesting things about PL II, including the following two items:

"How many channels? It is possible to bring out as many channels with this technology as with any other matrix technology. Dolby and I agree that 5 channels is the best place to start. It’s been hard enough to talk some consumers into 5 channels, let alone 7 to 10. Dolby does not want to confuse the market by bringing this out with more channels now because consumers would think the extra channels were the “big thing” instead of the improved performance. I have worked with more channels on the breadboard but find that 5 channels are all I need in my listening room."

"It is possible to bring out a separate center surround channel (as on my breadboard) but that will have to come later."

Kevin: I think this is the Fosgate Audionics pre-pro that you heard about.

Best,
Sanjay



[This message has been edited by sdurani (edited November 11, 2002).]