2. digital
  3. 142367-73036

Beware of SACD Transports -- they probably will not work with your favorite DAC

Hello, I just learned a painful lesson. I'm guessing that not many people will know this so I'm going to put it in here.

The audio on a SACD is encrypted.
If I were to purchase a SACD / CD player I have nothing to worry about. The Audio is un-encrypted inside the player.
However if I were to purchase a SACD / CD Transport made my brand Z, I would have to purchase a brand Z DAC???
Apparently Sony who owns the SACD format mandated that the audio on the SACD itself is encrypted and
the digital output from a SACD transport is ALSO encrypted. It looks like the actual un-encryption is done in the DAC.
There is no standard for doing the un-encryption so every manufacturer has their own proprietary way of doing this.
So I cant use a Esoteric SACD transport and an Auralic DAC which is what I tried to do?
londontk

Showing 1 response by electro69

electro69
6 posts
 
In general SACD players do not allow digital output as a DSD bitstream, they only allow 16/44 through Coax on back.

There are a small number of exceptions with proprietary interfaces.

The Sony SCD xA9000ES has a FireWire link, Sony branded as ‘I-Link’ but it is proprietary to Sony and can only be used with their own surround amps. (which aren’t great)

DCS also use FireWire to enable transfer to their own DACs these are in the £20k plus price bracket

However this route is a technological dead end.

Oppo players and similar universal players can transfer DSD over HDMI to a home cinema amp, some enable DSD but will typically convert down to 16/44 for processing so a waste of time in many cases, and you are limited to use a home cinema amp for music :-(

Good news though
We are in 2019 now it’s been possible to rip the Hi-Rez DSD layer from SACD for many years now. (Just google it - ask for Ted Brady)

Do this and you can play DSD directly to a stereo or surround DAC from a computer or streamer. There are many DACs that now support DSD stereo, only a couple that support surround e.g. Exasound e28/38.

Of course you can then also buy new DSD downloads online from various places to add to your collection.
More to discover