Can't agree more with your assessment of the 5.1 channel situation. As for using a flagship with just five channels, yeah, I thought about this, but beyond the most advanced room correction system and higher power, what would be the benefit of using such an AVR in that scenario? I realize that by not using those extra amp channels you theoretically are easing the headroom loads for the channels you DO use, but in my case, because I wouldn't be using, say, the most advanced type of Dirac or taking advantage of 20 channels, I don't suspect it would be of benefit.
That's one of the roadblocks I faced when I was considering the RZ50 -- I liked the PRODUCT itself in terms of its appearance, size and power, but didn't need what most people buy the model for: Dirac and high channel support.
No, it's not particularly relevant or important (I even mentioned in a previous post that this initially was "no big deal"), but it does make me wonder if something is wrong with the unit. It may just be an early symptom of something. Of course, right now, the codecs seem to be working correctly when discs play, but I'd like to know why this is suddenly occurring.
I guess I can run it past my Denon contact.
Yes; but I normally select the main soundtrack from the setup menu, as it's the "best" audio presentation. No matter what track I choose, though, the Denon is doing this weirdness with the mixed codec/upmixer combos.
Oh, I won't prefer the way the new ones do things -- I already know that, which is why I haven't purchased one. I prefer the Onkyo brand over all else, but there's nothing drawing me to one of the new models; they still don't show the sound mode/codec in use alongside the input name on the front panel and they still don't include the IntelliVolume feature (which we talked about ad nauseum in the other thread).Additionally, I'd be right back to the upmixer problem in my situation (trying to figure out how I can get Dolby Surround and DTS Neural to kick in automatically when 2.0 tracks are detected).
It's coming back to putting my old TX-SR605 back into the system and just dealing with the failing onscreen menus until the unit eventually dies altogether.