I read that DTS decoders were designed like this to emulate what was played in cinemas 5.1 using Side wall speakers and half back wall speakers, for each 5.1 rear Channel.
Then, when 7.1 was deployed for home, they kept that "design" to fully use the 7.1 speakers like in the cinemas.
Later, when the mixes were done for 7.1 discrete, the home user then had the possibility to different discrete content for the Surrounds and the Surrounds back. Always talking about "direct" mch, without any upmixing processing option.
There used to be AVR settings to "ON" or "OFF" the behaviour of duplicating the 5.1 Surrounds to the 7.1 Surrounds back. But in most recent AVR it looks that that setting was removed and the default setting ON remains just for 5.1 DTS and DTS-HD to duplicate to 7.1 surround backs.
I really think It is a good "design" from DTS for Blu-ray films, for home cinema, and with the 'standard mandatory' of alternate 5.1 PCM track that we could see in many Blu-ray films.
PCM, Dolby, and TrueHD, never did that kind of feature of copying 5.1 rear content to the 7.1 surround backs.
And Finally, It comes our Multichannel Surround mixes for Music. They used to use DTS more than other codecs to deliver lossless format. But with DVD we usually have DD and DTS to choose from.
I'm used to this, with DTS, and when I listen 5.1 FLAC, or Dolby 5.1 from DVD, I miss the 'option' to duplicate Surrounds to Surrounds back. I then have a "custom" speakers assign config, with my DENON 8500 to config that duplication for 5.1. But lazy to change to that special config.
Sorry for this 'off topic' in the Peter Gabriel thread.
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