Originally posted by Rene S. Hollan:
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?
There is no reason you can't do that but it would require the 990 to have an actual mixer built-in (something different than the simple Y-splitter functionality it currently has). There is no interest (aside from you) in such capability because the goal of home theatre technology/processing has been to localize and stabalize centre content, not smear it across three speakers. It's the antithesis of what companies like Dolby and DTS want to do with a discrete centre channel.
On the 990 it most certainly is, because I can't tell it there is no centre speaker.
Again, that's a bug. On a normally operating procesor, PLII does not extract centre content when only two front speakers are configured. That would be the equivalent of discarding centre content (it's being extracted but not played back).
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.
Again, PLII does not do any downmixing. The Centre Width parameter can be adjusted to vary the amount of centre content
extracted. But PLII has no capability of
combining centre content with other channels.
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.
OK, I'll bite. When you do get a centre speaker, how will you suddenly have the capability to variably bleed discrete centre content into the L/R channels? Is the centre channel somehow going to change the processing capabilities of the 990 to add the remix function that you want?
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