I've just bought a brand new 9600/12 blu-ray unit. The main reason for selecting 9600 was because it has high-quality 7.1 analog audio out. I have high-end home theater setup with separate pre-amp and separate power amps, feeding Dali's Euphonia series.

My connections from 9600 are:

9600 HDMI (video only) -> Optoma HD86 projector
9600 7.1 Analog Out -> analog pre-amp -> power amps -> speakers

After connecting 9600, I am very dissapointed. There are SEVERE sw bugs in Philips' audio firmware.

- Center channel IS NOT mixed to front main channels even when center speaker is set "off" in Philips speaker config menu
- Audio delay does not seems to have any effect to analog outs
- Severe lips sync problems, audio comes at worst more than 300ms before the image...

And the reason why I bought this unit, was like said, the advanced analog audio features....!

I am thinking of taking the unit back to the shop. Philips, any comments? Will updated and corrected firmware be available EVER for this model?