Article: At Long Last! Listen To Your (Physical) SACDs Through an Outboard DAC

[firedog]

Hi George-

AFAIR, all ESS chips convert DSD to PCM internally, they don't do one-bit conversion direct to analog. There are AKM chips that convert DSD directly to analog, without internal conversion as an intermediate step.

Maybe that's why you don't like the sound of the Oppo.

[firedog]

There's also this : https://www.stereophile.com/content/geerfab-audio-dbob-digital-breakout-box

which can be attached to an SACD player HDMI out and output DSD (DoP) over SPDIF to a DAC. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

While that’s very true, the solution mentioned in the Stereophile article costs about US$1000 vs around $60 for this solution. One has gotta want to play one’s SACDs through an outboard DAC very badly, to be willing to go that route. Luckily, now one doesn’t have to...

Sure, but lots of DACs don't have an HDMI input, but do have an SPDIF input. 

[firedog]

12 minutes ago, barrows said:

I would suggest that this is not quite accurate, at least not IMO, but some of this depends on what one calls PCM and DSD.  Typically, most DACs which one would say covert DSD to PCM, would end up converting a DSD data stream to a known PCM format, like 176.4 24 bit, or 352.8 24 bit, or perhaps 32 bit.  The ESS chips do not do this, indeed they do not reduce the sample rate at all for DSD 64 input.  The ESS chip does create a multi bit format out of DSD, at 5, 6, or 7 bits according to the settings of the chip: this is the bit rate the actual chip conversion stage runs at: this process is a re-modulation and does pass through the ESS SDM, but in the 9038 Pro, the SDM is actually very good and should not be of much concern, if at all.  On the other hand, if the manufacturer configures the ESS chip with a non synchronous clocking approach (which is the common way the chip is implemented) the sample rate will be entirely asynchronously re-sampled, and IMO, this really messes with the sound.  If the DAC manufacturer configures the ESS 9038 with a synchronous clock though, all is good and any oversampling is at integer values and sounds very good indeed with DSD 64 input.  DACs such as Ayre use the ESS chip this way, and it can be accomplished with DIY ESS 9038Pro based DACs as well.

Thanks for the clarification. As I wrote, that was from memory. If I understand you correctly, in actuality most implementations do resample the DSD stream. So if you are concerned about this it would be something to clarify before buying an ESS based DAC.

I personally have zero problem with "multi-bit DSD", others might want a DAC that does conversion to analog directly from the one bit stream.