Is there any fundamental hardware limitation preventing the Empeg from sending out four independent channels of sound? Obviously the software doesn't yet support this, but I'm wondering if it's ever possible with current hardware.

It is not possible with the current hardware. The DSP chip that does the actual output can only do two channels with a fader. It does not decode 4-channel surround or anything. Even if the Empeg software did the decoding, it only has two channels worth of input.

I guess theoretically you could fit an external Dolby decoder (regular Dolby, not AC-3), but the problem is that the data compression of the MP3 files probably would mangle any Dolby encoding embedded in the stereo signal.

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Tony Fabris