everybody's stepping so much, you much have Happy Feet (in lossy, or lossless, depending on format...
)
By the way, the conjecture about Warner distinguishing between the two formats is an interesting one, I'd always prefer sources for such claims myself. I'm one of those that as soons as I bought my BD-10 would be anything that was the same specs/extras on BD (knowing/believing full well where the wind would blow in time), and anything that was superior (lossless audio, PIP commentary, etc.) in the "other" format. So, if that was the plan, worked for me!
Anyhoo, you both above bring up two interesting points:
1) There should be no difference, volume matched, between the two lossless audio formats from the same soundtrack
2) Lots of people on forums such as this one often claim DTS HD MA is superior to TrueHD. Some even say that LPCM sounds better than both of them (less losslessy, I guess... *cough*)
Both of these could be true at the same time, naturally. You then have to ask why number two if number one is true? There is the rub methinks, where all kinds of fun (placebo, comparing disparate films, setup issues, lack of volume matching (or lack of -ability- to volume match), etc., etc.)
Do a blind test on the Spears and Munsil and you'd be hard pressed, I'd think, to hear which one was "punchier".
So, yeah... the ugly truth of forum postings confronting the cold hard facts and/or the vagaries of studio mastering that may tweak one release over another.
ps. I've yet to seem him here, but "Filmmixer" over at the forum-that-must-not-be-named is a font of knowledge about such things, fwiw....
pps. I admit it's weird that we're having this civil, informative discussion about this stuff without the direct particiaption of Penton, given that he doesn't want to spoil the vote. I do hope, kind sir, that after the vote closes you'll give us your own insights (from either a technical or politicial point of view) regarding Sony's choice of audio compression format.
ppps. Doesn't DTS or Dolby throw money at studios for such exclusivity? I think =I= should start getting money from these guys for writing this stuff, as should you all... Let's start a petition to get paid to ramble about BD tech, k?