Wait a second: you're only using two speakers? Rene, have you been guessing about some of the stuff you're claiming or have you actually tested those things out (as I did last night)?

I performed a mathematical analysis. On the BG dispersion patterns (and those of planar magnetic speakers), I refer you to the BG site (www.bgcorp.com). As I own a pair of Radia 520i as well as Carver ALS, I am familiar with them personally.

I note that the PLII extraction with variable centre channel level can be decomposed, mathematically, into a non-linerar transform followed by a linear 3x3 matrix multiply. I refer to the latter as downmix, because that's what it's typically used for. Use "remix" if you prefer. That remix can be used for extracted as well as discrete channels.

The bottom line is that you are saying that matrixed sound is decoded by Flcrs(X) and remixed discrete sound is handled by MY. No disagreement.

I'm noting that this can be transformed to Flcrs(X) = M*F'lcrs(X) and M*Y = M*Y, refactoring M. M, of course, is a linear transformation (i.e. remix) matrix, Flcrs() and F'lcrs() being a non-linear vector function over a two dimensional (stereo) vector argument, and Y being a discrete signal vector.

Given that M exists for discrete sources (to map channels to speakers) and can be derived for matrixed sources, I say, why not make the processing offered by M orthogonal to the encoding format?

What I'm not hearing from you (and what might very well be the case), is that there is no linear decomposition M*F'lcrs(X) = Flcrs(X) possible to achieve the degree of center channel extraction for PLIIx sources. I was under the impression that such a linear decomposition did, in deed, exist.

What extraction are you talking about? With two front speakers, PLII is not extracting any centre content. If you're using two speakers total (no surrounds), then PLII is not doing any processing whatsoever

On the 990 it most certainly is, because I can't tell it there is no centre speaker. I can either tell the 990 to downmix to stereo (which is idempotent for PLII, as you noted and it is not clear if the 990 will extract and remix or just leave the signal alone), OR tell the PLII processor to extract none of the centre.

If M*F'lcrs(X) = Flcrs(X) decomposition is possible for PLII, then there is no reason why the 990 can't just let me control M independent of source. It lets me do this for some values of M knowing how many speakers I have for discrete sources with one fixed value of M for each speaker configuration, and several values of M for PLII decoding, controlling centre channel extraction. If PLII-style control of M was available for all sources, then it would offer a workaround for the bug where I can't specify the lack of a centre channel speaker.

Sure, I can select stereo downmix from the 990, but it defeats this when it sees a PLII encoded source! So, there are two bugs consipring against me. If Outlaw had refactored M as above, I could use creative settings of M to get around the bugs.

I suppose, I can get around the problem until my BG 220i arrives by setting the centre channel extraction to none for PLII matrixed sources.

The answer is not an 'inexpensive' analog mixer (I have not found good mixers to be inexpensive -- the BG 220i is by far the cheaper and more correct solution). The answer is a centre channel speaker.