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The Engine's Out Back!
The Theta Casablanca has always
been a moving target. The mainframe approach of the original design
meant owners would be able to swap up to new audio formats and surround
technologies when they became available. If all you could initially
afford were Standard D /A converters, Theta always provided a path
to upgrade to their Superior cards when you had the money. Hardware
upgrades, from the chip level to the card level, are still available,
but with the II you can also download operating-system upgrades.
While Theta would rather a dealer perform these upgrades, I'm certain
many computer-savvy Casablanca owners will want to try it themselves.
As noted earlier, the Casablanca
can be configured for up to 8.4 channels with the appropriate complement
of boards. That's a maximum of five surrounds-two side and three
rear. The Theta may be set up to activate all the surround channels
with one of the music surround modes selected, such as Matrix or
Circle Surround (the latter is an extra-cost option), though with
somewhat limited flexibility. For example, with five surround speakers
installed, the left side and left rears receive the same information;
ditto for the right surrounds. The side and rear speakers must also
use the same crossover parameters. The only operational differences
allowed are independently varying the delays and levels for the
side and rear channels. If there is a center rear channel, the signal
it receives is matrix-derived from the left and right surrounds.
(The Casablanca's rear-center-channel dematrixing software is written
by Circle Surround, though you don't need the Circle Surround option
to get the rear-center software.) Theta's Mary Cardas confirmed
that a software upgrade  could
potentially provide independent side and rear surround speaker setups
in the operating software, but there are no plans at present for
such an implementation.
The Casablanca II can also playback
THX Surround EX and DTS 6.1 Surround ES Matrix soundtracks when
you have more than two surround speakers, with the rear-center surround
channel derived with the same matrix described above. The Casablanca
will not, however, play back DTS 6.1 Surround ES Discrete program
material in full discrete form yet, but this is planned for in a
future upgrade.
These extra-channel complexities
will not be addressed further in this review my system is currently
set up for 5.1 channels only. The Casablanca II I asked for and
tested was, therefore, limited to this conventional configuration.
If you choose to add more channels, you should consult closely with
your dealer to determine not only the correct Casablanca boards
to order, but final system setup as well.
Although it's possible to enjoy
the Casablanca II simply as a 2-channel preamplifier, most customers
will no doubt spring for a fully enabled surround processor with
Dolby Digital and DTS processing. As mentioned above, a Circle Surround
option is available for extracting ambience from 2channel recordings,
but I heard little difference between this and Theta's own Matrix
mode. Perhaps with more channels in play, the results would be different,
but if you're going for the classic 5.1 setup, save your money.
Theta's Matrix is good enough.
Theta is on the cusp of accommodating discrete
multichannel recordings. Naturally, DTS CDs and 5.1-encoded music
DVDs play fine through the Casablanca II, but as of yet there is no
provision for playing SACD or DVD-Audio discs-that is, there is no
6-channel analog pass-through. Theta is waiting, perhaps a bit too
optimistically, for the hardware and software industries to agree
on a FireWire solution that will allow a digital signal to pass from
these new hi-def audio formats to an as-yet-undeveloped input card.
When I discovered that the Casablanca
II has no multichannel bypass mode, like those found in simple sub-$1000
receivers, my first reaction was to bristle at the thought of spending
so much money for a processor that cant do what a Kenwood can. But
Theta has invested its fortune and reputation in the incredibly
versatile and nearly unlimited speaker-crossover configurations
they offer in the Casablanca. At
best, a simple 6-channel bypass would have to completely skirt those
complex, carefully optimized setups and rely on whatever homogenous
bass-management features came with the source player [which are,
at present, none--TJN].
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