How do you handle a 6.1 home theater system with the 950? I have a very slow connection and don't feel like tying up my computer for an hour+ downloading the manual.

Can it be configured to output 6.1 or do you just use one of the rear channels from the 7.1 output (making the rear out of balance?)?

The 950 has four outputs for surrounds; two side and two rear (for "Dolby EX" or "DTS-ES"). The manner and number of speakers you have as surrounds can be configured in the "speaker config" menu. You can select options for NO rear surrounds (just side surrounds, or 5.1), one rear surround (6.1) or two rear surrounds (7.1).

Cool.

Thanks for the quick reply Soundhound.

*** I ordered my shiney new Outlaw pre-amp and amp, now I'm trying to work out the rear speakers. Trying to decide if 6.1 is the end of the world compared to 7.1.

Dane- There are a few reasons to consider 7.1 over 6.1.

a) "Reversal". Front-to-back reversal is a psycho-acoustic phenomena whereby if there is a sound directly behind you, the brain *may* construe it to be directly in front of you. Now, with the sight cues that are obviously present with a TV in front of you, this is admittedly rare, but it does occur. 2 rear channels vs just 1 helps to minimize this.

b) People who have had 6.1 and then upgraded to 7.1 (like me for example ), typically find that 2 rears do a better job of filling in the rear soundstage vs just 1.

c) Logic 7, in my opinion, is the best soundfield out there. Logic 7 can be configured for 5.1 or 7.1, but it does not support a 6.1 soundfield, mostly because of (a) above.

d) In general, the more surrounds/rears you have, the less localizeable any 1 speaker is.

I would suggest, that if you have the room, and the denaro, you might just want to jump to 7.1. I had 5.1 for years, 6.1 for about 15 months, and now 7.1 for about 6 months. I kind of wished I had skipped 6.1, but I had to try it to know that I preferred 7.1 more. But I will be honest too, I think that there is a larger difference between 5.1 and 6.1 than 6.1 to 7.1. But I think that in this case, "more is [still] better."

I'll second all of Kevin's points, especially the one about front/back reversals. It's an old problem with an incredibly simple solution: use two rear speakers. Note that the surround-back channel is the ONLY CHANNEL where THX and DTS and Dolby all recommend the use of two speakers.

Also note that when those companies refer to their EX/ES technologies, they always use the term "surround-back", never "centre-rear". This is because those sounds were never intended to be localized in the middle of the back wall. To that end, two rear speakers (7.1) get you closer to EX/ES's back-wall-of-sound than a single speaker (6.1). While individual surround speakers are less localizable in a 7.1 set-up, sounds themselves can be better localized when using four surrounds. Sounds intended to come from behind really do appear to come from behind, and not some phantom side-ish rear-ish direction. Fancy processing? Nope, just a couple of speakers behind you (makes it hard for those sounds to come from any other direction).

That sort of stable imaging in the surround field is simply not possible with a 5.1 set-up. Nor can two surround speakers provide the sort of wrap-around envelopment that four speakers can.

Best,
Sanjay

I like how Sanjay put that: in a 7.1 system, the speakers themselves are less localizable, but the sounds themselves are more spatially distinct.

I beg to differ.
I "upgraded" from 7 speakers to 6,with great results. I found the soundstage to be more "stable".
The rear panning affect are moving without being "jumpy".With 7 speakers the rear was a big cloud of sound with no definition to it.
I guess other's MMV.