Perhaps he's being confused with the Sound Blaster Live!
No, it is you people who are confused:
The AWE64 also has a native OPL3 chip as well.
I have an AWE64 Gold (CT4540). When running under DOS with your AWE32/AWE64, do you run a utility called "AWEUTIL /S" at boot time (not memory-resident)?
If yes, and if FM doesn't work if you don't run the utility that way, the OPL3 sound is NOT native OPL3. The real Yamaha OPL3 chip doesn't need to be "woken up" with AWEUTIL.
The "Creative OPL" chip Great Hierophant is talking about might very well just be translating OPL3 chip writes into the appropriate Emu-8000 writes, and AWEUTIL /S just sets up the Emu-8000 to accept these writes.
It's also possible that the "Creative OPL" chip is really some kind of FM-producing chip, and the AWEUTIL /S line just makes the Emu-8000 accept its output. But either way, it's not an actual Yamaha OPL3, and the differences in sound are quite obvious when doing a direct comparison.
You can also post clips of certain games (say, the "Apogee fanfare" in Duke Nukem II, or the "Bootup" music in Ultima 6), and I will be able tell you, without you telling me, if it's the original OPL3 sound or the AWE's emulation of it, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Sound Blaster Live.
As for the two FM cores in the AdPLug Winamp plugin, Tatsuyuki Satoh's core, which seems to be the one DosBox uses, imitates the AWE sound, whereas Ken Silverman's core goes for the real OPL3 sound. Basically, Ken Silverman's core seems to be perfect except for the fact that it resets the Waveform position to zero every time a new note is started, which the real OPL3 doesn't do. This is most obvious in Ultima VI's "BRIT.M" and "DUNGEON.M" songs. Otherwise, it's perfect, as far as I can tell.