Yes, I have tried playing Dolby Surround (original) material through a Dolby Surround (ATMOS era) decoder. In general, I find it works very well. My Dolby Surround (ATMOS era) decoder up-mixes to 5.1.4 giving the sound an immersive sound. Of course, depending on the music being played one may or may not want to hear an immersive sound experience.
Amazon sells HDMI audio extractors that can work with the Sony blu-ray player to provide a two channel signal that can be fed into the SM. I use an input selector box that I run the analog outputs from my Pro-ject phono stage, Sony CD recorder, and 2 channel out from my Harman/Kardon DVD-48 CD/DVD-A/SACD player. It works quite well. The extractors have a pass-through for the HDMI, and an optical digital output. One of these may bean option for you. There are several there to choose from, all relatively inexpensive.
You would connect the outputs of that universal player to the Surround Master to do what, exactly? If you wanted to play matrix-encoded CD's through it, you could use the stereo analog out from that HK player to do that, or enhance stereo CD's for surround. It will do nothing for SACD, nor DVD-A. It doesn't need to, and you can't connect a multichannel output from a player into it. You have 5.1 outputs from the SM, but only stereo input. As for using the SM for creating surround from stereo, I do that all the time. I'm amazed at how well, in the Involve mode, it does at creating an effect that could have very been an intended mix, even if it weren't. But that's just my opinion, and I'm sticking to it!
In rereading my previous post, I can see how it could lead to confusion. I should have said: I could use the two channel outputs of the Harman Kardon to play ordinary two-channel music through the Surround Master to synthesize a multi-channel output. SACD and most DVD-A discs usually have a two-channel high resolution output that can be fed into the Surround Master or other matrix decoder to synthesize multi-channel sound.
That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the clarification.
The problem with the Dolby Surround Upmixer is that it has nothing in common with the matrix used for Dolby Surround, including PL II. Unlike PL II, it cannot decode QS material properly. I tested it, at a friend's house, with both the QS, and SQ, sides of the "Quadrafile" LP. It wasn't even close, with either matrix.
Actually, no. The fact that DPL-2 properly decodes QS made that unnecessary. DPL-2 placed the sounds properly, verified by the voice announcements. The Upmixer clearly did not.
I can play all of the classic quad formats to my satisfaction and that includes 4ch R2R and CD-4 all though the last two are not normally in the system. I can play all of the modern digital surround formats all without a single HDMI audio connection. I don't have ATMOS & never will as I've found my sweet spot. But I will never waste a single keystroke criticizing or discouraging anyone else to go that route.
This says nothing about how compatible it may be with DPL encoded source.
This complains how poor Neo 6 is every time it is used, how it draws attention to itself and splits the sound into discrete pools with gaps in between. That was partly my experience of Neo 6 on my old AV amp from 2007, but given that had DPL and DPL II I had the correct decoders anyway. Also Neo 6 was quietly changed so not all Neo 6 decoders sound the same.
Or we could use DD 5.1 test signals and take advantage of DD 5.1's ability to downgrade to a 2.0 DPL signal.
