I'm sure there are many of you out there. Question/proposal:

Question:

Are there any audio tools out there for mixing your own 5.1+ audio files? I'm sure there are post processing type tools that work like a straight mixer, where you run X channels and you use some dials to turn up and down the various channels as you want. What about if you want to play those files through your home stereo system? I guess there'd be ways to author your own DVD with 5.1+ channels that you can play.

What are these tools?

Proposal:
If these things don't exist, or are a real pain in the butt to use, I'd like to see something done about this. A tool that integrates really well with the current software music production packages (e.g, Reason) and fits seamlessly into the production process any respectable music producer currently follows. I'm picturing maybe some gui element that looks like the little joystick control you sometimes see in car stereos for changing the balance and fade. And it would have to easily generate a playable DVD that can output all the channels.

Then try to get skilled music producers to adopt it. Make it the mission statement of the project. Oakenfold/Armin/All those down right dirty house music producers... HAVE to want to adopt it. If someone is releasing a full album, they could very easily do a 5.1 version up and put that out there too.

We could end up with something that provides for a phenomenal listening experience.

Maybe there's something like this, but if I haven't heard of it, then it's not doing a good enough job

I have a pretty good idea of how this could be done, but I'm sure there are experts on the various audio libraries that could weigh in here to save me some research time. Maybe someone knows how to whip off a quick wiki.