Best way to play sacd-iso MCH

[audiventory]

FWIW, I am in the process of converting my ISOs to DSFs for more general use and to reduce the load on the CPU.

 

Also conversion ISO to DSF allow use embedded artworks into the DSFs.

 

If you want use ISO at portable player, possibly to save disk space via extracting stereo only or stereo-downmixed (during conversion) multichannel tracks.

[audiventory]

For myself, I connect my PC to my home theatre receiver via HDMI. I can play multi channel SACD ISO's through foobar. I have to convert to PCM because no GPU's allows DSD playback via HDMI, but that's fine in my opinion. Going through the receiver is probably the cheapest and most convenient way if you already have a home theatre set up.

 

Using foobar's inline or other tools offline conversion depend on that DSD decoder you prefer by sound.

 

There may be matter that target sample rate/bit depth you use. Your receiver may have different features for different sample rate/bit depth combination.

 

Also I recommend use ASIO or WASPI for playback via HDMI receiver for avoiding processing into Windows drivers. If your card havn't native ASIO driver, you can use universal driver ASIO4ALL.

[audiventory]

Why is there so little interest in MCH???

 

I suppose, due many people use portable audio (my impression).

[audiventory]

6 hours ago, pippenainteasy said:

Can PC really bitstream DSD? I thought it can only output PCM?

 

It can, because, as rule, audio player is restricted and less powerful PC 

[audiventory]

@Brewie  when you use CUE splitters, it may be desirable to care about how a tool split audio: by blocks or samples. Because splitting by blocks can cause getting begin of next track at end of previous. In some cases it can be matter.
Read details here ["Sound quality" part] https://samplerateconverter.com/flac/flac-cue-splitter