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

[The Computer Audiophile]

This is really cool George! I know there are many people who don't want to rip their SACDs and would rather just put a disc in and call it a day. Plus, the ability to use a great DAC is so cool.

 

Thanks!

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, firedog said:

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.

It's always great to possibly correlate a technical reason for the sonic preferences of someone. Thanks @firedog.

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 hours ago, rando said:

 

Kal rightly arrived at using a passive preamplifier-processor many years ago. 

 

 

Establishing said BDP actually has capability to playback DSD and, based on the level of technical awareness being exhibited in the comments, making clear what you are comparing.  Let me remind you that DAC used in the Oppo was mentioned and listening tests through both DAC chips were performed.  In brief you skipped right over the rather large potential issue of whether the Sony device actually passes on untouched data.

 

Provenance in this case would've elicited a few sharp intakes of breath.  Since you were remiss in providing any clue why or how the Sony was chosen.  I promoted some background information.  

Can’t you just read an article for what it is instead of comment cryptically on all possibilities a writer didn’t cover to your liking?

[The Computer Audiophile]

14 minutes ago, rando said:

 

Have you lost all cognitive memory of participating in the comments section of every single article he's written?  Beyond pointing out you are dropping the bar impossibly low here.  Should not articles provoke conversation and further expansion upon the ideas portrayed.   You've all but managed to avoid angry rhetoric in the comments by some stroke.  Why seed them.

 

What I saw was a string of responses highlighting nearly every corner of research indirectly touched on.  Forgive me for the sin of asking "Why was none of this included?"

 

That’s quite a high horse your on. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

If it's the termination that causes jitter than sure it could be an issue, but if it's the protocol, then that's irrelevant because you aren't using HDMI protocol.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, beerandmusic said:

but isnt the hdmi protocol used in the conversion?  How else would the audio signal be translated?  Not doubting what you are saying, just trying to figure it out?  How does hdmi signal get to analog in an avr vs how it is converted from hdmi to i2s?

To be honest, to my ears, I have many times thought that hdmi sounded pretty damn good (at least compared to typical bluray internal dacs).

I could be mistaken with respect to this specific case. Many I2S implementations use HDMI ports and cables, but not the HDMI protocol. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

i am referrring to the "box" that gmgraves purchased that converts the hdmi signal to i2s for the dac.  I would think that some hdmi protocol would be needed to convert it.

Ah yes. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi @gmgraves I just received the message via the Contact Us form.

 

To the attention of George Graves

 

In reference to your Audiophilestyle Web article -- "At Long Last! Listen to Your Physical SACDs Through an Outboard DAC" -- I wondered about the available setup options of the OPPO-UDP-205.

 

I took some screen shots of the options in question but could notdetermine a way to insert local images files (with no Web URLs) in this message.

 

Here are the options I wanted to bring to your attention:

• Setup Menu
  • Audio Output Setup
    • HDMI Audio Format
      • Auto
      • LPSM
      • Bitstream
      • Off
• Setup Menu
  • Audio Output Setup
    • SACD Output
      • Auto
      • PCM
      • DSD

 

My assumption from the above options screens that with the settingshown in bold (Bitstream+DSD) it should be possible to pass the SACD signal to an external DAC.

 

I must confess to ignorance as to which digital outputs these options are mapped to: HDMI, SPDIF or Toslink. This would be crucial for your task so it would need additional research and/or experimentation to resolve.

 

My apologies if you were already aware of these options and havefound they do not directly achieve what you need.

 

JWH

 

 

Note: Following is just for your general reference regarding SACD options

• Setup Menu
  • Audio Output Setup
    • SACD Priority
      • Multi-Channel
      • Stereo
      • CD Mode