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

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, hgaggioni said:

I work for a Japanese company and have had the opportunity (and continue) to travel to Japan many times. As you know Japan adores physical media and have excelled in production workflows for video and music. I have acquired hundreds of these Japanese printed discs, 

The label Venus (Hyper Magnum Sound) - primarily CDs, SACDs and now LPs - is an example of superb mastering techniques and manufacturing of the media (SACD, SHM-SACD, etc) . Now these discs are available in the US, of course at $30+ .... but the capture, editing mastering is insanely beautiful - even if the original material was recorded in studios are outside Japan. Right now I am revisiting all of these discs - exclusively Jazz - on my new set up - and it is really shocking to hear layers of details that (as far as I can rely on my memory) were not there the first time around.   Cheers....

Having, in another life, worked for Omron, Fujitsu, Oki Semiconductor, and Otari, I have been to Japan and spent more time there than I care to recall, so I can definitely relate to your observations about Japanese mastering and production practices when it comes to music (in the ‘80’s, I bought scores of Japanese video laserdiscs. Always found them to be better than the domestically available versions). I have lots of both 20-bit and 24-bit JVC XRCD titles (many jazz titles from labels such as Riverside and other small  jazz labels from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s as well as classics from the RCA and British Decca (London Records) catalogues) and they all sound superb - even the mono ones! 

When in Japan, I always made sure that I had lots of money available as I would sometimes need to take along a foldable backpack to bring all the laserdiscs, and music CDs back with me that I purchased in Tokyo’s Aki Habara district!

[gmgraves]

20 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

https://intl.pioneer-audiovisual.com/find_by_category/docs/UDP-LX800_CMQ%40180919_HR.pdf#page=2

 

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/pioneer-udp-lx-500-800-owners-thread-no-price-talk.3018474/page-47#post-58812296

 

Transport mechanism looked quite decent

 

 

 

And then a reversible upgrade could be applied to the PSU

 

https://www.clonesaudio.com/product-page/psplx

 

Replacing the clock(s) could provide further uptick (similar to Oppo UDP-205) in sound quality after the expiration of warranty

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/review-comparison-of-5-high-end-digital-music-servers-aurender-n10-cad-cat-server-totaldac-d1-server-auralic-aries-audiophile-vortex-box.787020/page-78#post-14117821

Looks good. I’d love to try one out against the Oppo UDP-205!

[gmgraves]

On 2/3/2021 at 5:37 PM, linger63 said:

 

Did you read the linked article in Post #1 ?.

You need to adjust the I2S settings in your Pontus to match these........

 

 

The Chinese I2S box and the Pontus were on the same I2S interface, IE, the default interface, and no adjustment of the Pontus I2S connection should be necessary. As far as I can make out, the player used as the SACD transport has nothing to do with the I2S/Pontus interface. If your player isn’t working, I suggest you try another. I’ve yet to find  blu-ray player which will support SACD that doesn’t work with this set-up.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, Daveyu said:

Not sure its the player as when I connect it to my AV amp and play a SACD it says DSD playing, think it must be the box, there are so many on eBay now

Can you say which was the one you actually purchased or who the seller was ?

Do you know what setting IS2 setting (xxx) you have on the Pontus

As I wrote the above, it occurred to me that maybe, just because all of these I2S boxes LOOK the same, doesn’t necessarily mean that they ARE the same. Did I merely luck-out? Still, one should be able to find the proper pin-out by following the instructions provided by Denifrips in the You-tube video.

 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, jxo said:

George, apologies if you addressed this elsewhere.  Does the Chinese box output DSD over the coax and/or optical outputs?   Have you tried either to your D’frips DAC?  I just don’t know I2S well enough and whether the only SACD playback option from this Chinese box will be over the hdmi output.   I have one of these boxes coming in a few days and will try with an Oppo 95 and a few older DACs lying around.  The GeerFab people tell me the Oppo 95 works well with their DBOB converter.

It does . It outputs from I2S from SPDIF, both optical (Toslink) and coaxial, and it outputs also from HDMI and pure I2S over what seems to be a Molex-type I2S connector. Since my understanding is that the Denafrips Pontus only accepts I2S over HDMI, I am unable to test the efficacy of I2S over the SPDIF interconnects.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, hgaggioni said:

I tried SPDIF (coax and optical) into the Pontus DAC from the Chinese Box and it work perfectly. I did not noticed any difference vs connecting with HDMI-I2S. The SQ of the DSD appears identical over the three connections. Hence, I think the box is truly sending the DSD64 over the three types of interfaces to the Pontus. The Pontus manual says that DSD64 is available over all inputs.

Good to know. I didn’t try it because from what I gathered from an Internet article I read, it wasn’t supposed to work. BTW, did you notice any difference between the performance of optical vs coax? This clears up a connection dilemma that I have now that I’ve employed the new Denafrips Hermes DTD box into the system (it wants HDMI too!). Thanks for the clarification and the correction. Much appreciated!

[gmgraves]

41 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Do you still need the box, or can go direct from player to DAC? 

I wouldn’t think so. The only place the DSD signal exists out of any Blu-ray player that supports SACD is over HDMI. The DSD data does not, AFAIK, appear on the “digital out” of any player as it’s not allowed by the SACD protocol specification. The HDMI output of any player have the audio stripped from the HDMI connector and output as a I2S signal before the Pontus sees it as DSD.

[gmgraves]

16 hours ago, hgaggioni said:

It was not a thorough investigation, but I tried a number of CDs and SCADs and kept switching between the three connection types. I could not detect any difference listening with speakers. I did not tried listening with headphones (our of the Pontus though an external headphone amp) to do a closer examination.

After your last post, I tried both optical and coax connections from the I2S “box“. I could get my Pontus to recognize neither one of them. It simply did not work. I’m beginning to wonder if there aren’t differences between these boxes bought through different vendors (???!!!).

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, jxo said:

Some of the listings for these boxes refer to Board B versions implying an update.  Thanks for all your work on this George.

No problem. I just wish I could use the coax or optical connection for I2S. It would allow me to eliminate an HDMI switch and connect the I2S through another interconnect. Oh,well, live and learn. Many thanks for your input.