Owen Smith
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
I
But the Oppo 103 does allow for 4.0 playback, 5.1 with no center speaker or sub is quad! With no center speaker that output is supposed to go to both front speakers. Likewise when 5.1 is selected 7.1 back channels are mixed with the surrounds. Yes it says that it may discard the audio if redirection is not possible. Why would it not be possible? I suspect it can't mix DSD the same as it can PCM. IMHO the mixing should be done via analog circuits for the analog outputs!
Analog mixing would cost money to add, and there are quite a few different types of downmix that would need to be supported.
Try selecting playing DSD as PCM, you may find it now downmixes correctly.
I find Tubular Bells SACD plays from the wrong speaker positions as DSD, whereas if I select DSD as PCM it plays out of the correct speaker positions. Given I can detect no audible difference I have DSD as PCM permanently enabled.