I've been griping about this for years. All of these so called high resolution DACSs are nearly worthless because you can't get high resolution audio into them without HDMI. Bryston has the right idea. PS Audio uses their proprietary HDMI input that only works with their transport. Bluray audio fixes most of the problems with SACD if you have a good processor.
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?
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?
Showing 3 responses by rwwear
Here's an inexpensive way to get DSD playback through a DAC. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Singxer-SU-1-XU208-XMOS-USB-Digital-interface-DSD256-PCM-384kHz-I2S-HDMI-output/263653745722?hash=item3d62fce43a:g:MqoAAOSw6n5Xv913 FAQ: What is DoP (DSD over PCM)? The original idea for DoP was invented by dCS in 2011. It involves taking groups of 16 adjacent 1-bit samples from a DSD stream and packing them into the lower 16 bits of a 24/176.4 data stream. Data from the other channel of the stereo pair is packed the same way. A specific marker code in the top 8 bits identifies the data stream as DoP, rather than PCM. The resulting DoP stream can be transmitted through existing 24/192-capable USB, AES, Dual AES or SPDIF interfaces to a DoP-compatible DAC, which reassembles the original stereo DSD data stream COMPLETELY UNCHANGED. If something goes wrong and the data stream is decoded as PCM, the output will be low-level noise with faint music in the back ground, so it fails safely. This can happen if the computer erases the marker code by applying a volume adjustment. |