It does nothing to left and right and just adds a little L+R to the center channel to give you a more stable image. Set the system to stereo then press the FX button till music is displayed. But you could try the FX music mode as this is a very purist surround extraction. I don't have a solution that does exactly what you want. Do you know how to achieve this besides asking Arcam to upgrade the firmware with the mode choice of PL II or Neo 6 without surround speakers?

I have tried to use a macro mode in my programmable remote control but still not successful as the selection requires lots cursor selection. I really want to have a simple button to do that. The problem is that even if I enjoy such way of listing songs, it is quite a trouble to switch between the set up for 1)no surround speakers for music, and 2) with surround speakers for movie. Another benefit of turning off the surround is that you do not need to waste power consumption for sounds that you do not want (the AVR300 consumes max. The center vocal part is very cleared and focused for songs. I then discover that by disabling surround speaker in setup and use PLII or Neo 6 for playing back stereo CD, the AVR300 can provide listening impression very near to that of stereo mode but with much better accurate sound image. The drawback of using PLII and Neo 6 is that they have allocated sounds to the surround speakers that distorts my experience of stereo CD.

However, as my listening environment is not as perfect as those provided in HiFi showrooms, I find that listening music with front and center speaker can rectify the environment issue significantly.

Hafler p1500 problem