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Why does Denon 3910 default to PCM for sacds?

I have been made aware of this by Alex Peychev. He states, "Anyway, the 3910 Source Direct ON/OFF mode is in the On-Screen menu in the Audio Settings. You need a monitor. When you select Source Direct ON you have true DSD. If it's OFF the DSD is converted to 176.4/24 PCM. Be aware that the Factory Default is Source Direct OFF, so the machine converts DSD to PCM. You need to go and change that." I have tried it both ways and it makes a substantial difference in the realism of the sound.

I suspect that Denon's indifference to sacd and the desire to hear sacds in dsd conversion is overridden by their expectation that most will be interested in only dvds and HT.
tbg
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
Given that SACD is much newer and limited in material, I dont see a problem with the choice of defaults, Samsung scrapped SACD because to many uneducated buyers thought that you could hook it up with your single digital wire and POOF you had SACD, then they all got mad when their reciever wouldnt except multi channel input, atleast thats what the cheif tech at Samsung told me on phone. I should note that they didnt scrap it entirely, the just added a model with and without and hoped the sales people could handle the rest of the deal.
krellcoda
63 posts
 
Thanks, Tbg for the info. I mainly use my 3910 for movies.
rex
245 posts
 
Rather than it being some big corporate conspiracy as you seem to suggest, it may be that Denon, a solidly mid-fi company, has figured out that most of its end-users want to hear their subwoofers go "boom." Source Direct bypasses bass management. Bass Management is absolutely MANDATORY for 99% of the HT-oriented surround-sound setups out there.
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