With the release of the new Direct Stream DAC, how are you planning on playing the DSD layer of the SACD disc directly from the universal player? I was planning on upgrading the MKii but noticed the DS does not have any method of directly accepting the DSD stream (only HDMI) from a universal player. I would have expected a new DSD based DAC to include an HDMI input which accepts a player’s output stream. Many of the newer DACs are having HDMI as an input option.
To my knowledge, there is not a single 2 channel DAC that accepts both HDMI and processes native DSD. For this capability, you are restricted to surround sound processors.
To do this you need to rip the SACD and play the rip into the DAC (typically over USB) through a music server
edorr is correct. The problem is very tight restrictions imposed by Sony. For one thing they do not allow streaming unencrypted DSD off of an SACD.
Presumably Ted and PS Audio would have to develop an SACD transport with an encrypted DSD output to achieve what you are asking about. And then get in the business of selling and supporting such a SACD transport/player. It may be beyond the scope of what they have in mind for DirectStream in the future.
Sony kill the SACD with all this paranoid protection. I have only a few of them and never buy any more.
It would be a waste of time for PSA to develop a SACD transport; universal players already have this capability so there is no need to pay a high premium for this. It would be great if they added an HDMI input to the DS to accept this stream.
Sony again; not going to waste any more money on Sony backed ventures including SACD discs.
What is the easiest method of moving the DSD layer off the disc which doesn’t involve a mystic game console running during the full moon? Standard hardware (that I am aware of) will not read this layer. I assume it will need to be converted to DoP as well. I have eLyric running on a desktop currently connected to the MKii.
Will be on holidays the next week so will check back once I return. Thanks!
I’ve never heard of a way to rip the DSD layer off of a SACD other than using a PlayStation 3 running a specific firmware version. There may be conversion services that will do it for you. If anybody has any other suggestions I would be delighted to hear them. I only have a handful of SACDs myself.
You can get it done professionally for $25 each by Puget Studios. They actually plays DSD out of his playback designs SACD player, and capture the DSD datastream. There is a thriving PS3 based SACD ripping community though.
I have the ps 3. It works fine. I get to hear my sacd,s on the NYC subway . I did not know the other way you suggested .
Al
What is the easiest method of moving the DSD layer off the disc which doesn't involve a mystic game console running during the full moon?
=))
One of the things I hate about SACD rip is the lack of a system like accuraterip to verify the accuracy of the rip. Optical reading is not a perfect thing. Even CD’s (and SACD’ for sure) don’t last for ever and can have factory defects to, and you will never notice until you try to accurately rip them.
There are SACD transports available; Esoteric, DCS, and EMM (may be others) make them, but I think they all use proprietary data links to connect the transport and DAC. I checked into Esoteric and they use i.Link which is a Sony implementation of IEEE 1394. While I have heard of this I don’t know much about it. I don’t think it’s the same as I2S, but perhaps there’s a way to convert it? I would suspect this is not something PS Audio would take on, but maybe someone else will? You would think with Sony abandoning SACD there might be a chance they would back off and let someone develop a converter (for a royalty fee of course). I don’t think standard HDMI is an option though, I believe it’s converted to PCM before sending out (find it hard to believe those home theater receivers can handle DSD).
Well, some of these home receivers actually do have DSD direct mode, handling native DSD. I did this with an Onkyo (DSD over HDMI) and it worked just fine.
My UMT plus does sacd as a transport . But only dsd with the I2S output to the msb dac
Al
There are SACD transports available; Esoteric, DCS, and EMM (may be others) make them, but I think they all use proprietary data links to connect the transport and DAC. I checked into Esoteric and they use i.Link which is a Sony implementation of IEEE 1394. While I have heard of this I don't know much about it. I don't think it's the same as I2S, but perhaps there's a way to convert it? I would suspect this is not something PS Audio would take on, but maybe someone else will? You would think with Sony abandoning SACD there might be a chance they would back off and let someone develop a converter (for a royalty fee of course). I don't think standard HDMI is an option though, I believe it's converted to PCM before sending out (find it hard to believe those home theater receivers can handle DSD).
The IEEE1394 is the same as the Firewire standard (400/800) and is a commonly known standard and not the same as I2s. It is also important to distinguish between electrical characteristics and communication protocols over the same link. As an example, the industrial RS485/422/232 is not a protocol but e.g. Modbus RTU is one.
Al, if the UMT is sending DSD data over I2S do you know if it is encoded in a way that only the MSB DAC can decode it? Obviously you don’t have a DS yet, but if it could read the DSD data stream that would be cool!
Frode, you know far more about this than I do. I didn’t think I2S was the same, but are you saying the IEEE 1394 and FireWire are electrical standards and the i.Link is a communication protocol? And therefore not the same? I’m just trying to verify that there isn’t an affordable way (and can’t be a way) to send DSD from an SACD to the DS. I know we’ve been beating this horse pretty good but I don’t recall anyone bringing up the SACD transports in the discussion.
I remember putting up Post about it when I received it. And I think it’s proprietary . I will do,it again. But I did go out and buy a ps 3 and ripped them all. But I will post again and post back.
Al
oll said Sony kill the SACD with all this paranoid protection. I have only a few of them and never buy any more.Sony have squandered so many great technical advantages with their approach.
From a company that Jobs used to want to be like, and one he reportedly used to take inspiration from, to a company that is practically past tense.
Proprietary memory, proprietary operating systems, proprietary media players, proprietary media formats.
Sony, the one, the only, … the lonely…
Green Machine said Proprietary memory, proprietary operating systems, proprietary media players, proprietary media formatsExactly like Apple. Jobs apparently listened and emulated.