this patch doesn't quite work.  it does allow
   "mplayer -channels 6 -ao oss" to not error out, but it does cause
   the audio to play slow (maybe 3x?  it's hard to tell) and only in
   two channels.
   

actually, this does work.  i had a problem with my physical setup
and once i fixed that mplayer -channels 6 works for both -ao sun
(native) and for -o oss.

sweet!


.mrg.