Remind me again on XDA and SACD's through digital

[pdaddy]

Do I recall from one of the threads that I cannot play an SACD if I use the optical or digital cable output from my Oppo BDP 83 to my XDA due to some protection encoding? If so, is there a digital option from my oppo to my XDA that does require a passthrough some other device? I am trying to stay as pure as possible source to XDA to amp to speakers.

[bobbyt]

SACD uses an entirely different format than CDs, and it's protected as well.

Unfortunately that means you can't do anything with a digital signal from them--you have to use the SACD player's DAC and pass analog. I've heard of one-off workarounds using HDMI or USB, but no true solution, and certainly nothing a standard PCM DAC would work with.

It's a shame too, because it's the one thing that keeps you from hooking up a $100 SACD player to a nice DAC/amp/speakers and getting incredible sound for much cheaper.

[Trey]

Wassup Suwanee? ;D

Actually you can use the HDMI switches (below) which de-embeds the HDMI audio signal and sends it over optical so yes, you can use optical and listen to SACD in high res. They both do the same thing.

$43
www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011002&p_id=5557&seq=1&format=2

$219
www.atlona.com/Atlona-HDMI-1.3-Audio-De-Embedder-with-3D-Support.html

.

[pdaddy]

Trey. Wassup Suwanee! Thanks I had heard about the HDMI switch but was trying to avoid using another decide if possible. What I have now is an HDMI from Oppo to a vizio Tv which has digital out to the XDA. I am just convinced that the signal is being degraded as it passes through the tv. Thanks again.

[Trey]

Oh yeah, I forgot about using the TV. Maybe you told me about that....someone here did. Keep in mind that the Oppo limits SACD to 88.2k for some reason too.

[johnrice]

Trey, are you certain those devices retain true SACD resolution?

pdaddy, you should be able to configure your Oppo to output SACD as LPCM in the DSD config options, then the UMC should give you full resolution SACD through hdmi. Some people claim to hear reduced quality, but I'm not sure it is valid.

[pdaddy]

Johnrice,
Based on my desired config (see original question), how would I connect my Oppo to an XDA via HDMI?

[LCSeminole]

Dec 21, 2010 22:46:50 GMT -5 pdaddy said:

Do I recall from one of the threads that I cannot play an SACD if I use the optical or digital cable output from my Oppo BDP 83 to my XDA due to some protection encoding? If so, is there a digital option from my oppo to my XDA that does require a passthrough some other device? I am trying to stay as pure as possible source to XDA to amp to speakers.

I ran into this problem yesterday evening when I had finally completely finished my 2 channel system in the bedroom. My Oppo BDP-83 won't pass anything from Coax or Optical to the XDA-1, which is connected to a USP-1. So for SACD's I've had to use the analog outputs from the BDP-83 to an input on the USP-1. I really find it ridiculous that SACD's don't work in this manner but DVD-Audio discs work just fine.

[Deleted]

The copy protection is just more thorough than DVD-A's. I know that the current BD players from Sony, even their cheapest, through HDMI so I don't think you need a workaround, you just need to use something that decodes HDMI such as the UMC-1.

[johnrice]

pdaddy, sorry for the oversight. I was thinking you were using a UMC. As far as I know, you're stuck. I have no idea if those alternatives mentioned work. The protection on SACD seems to be higher than DVD-A.

[pdaddy]

Thanks all for trying. I am really trying to keep an analog preamp out of mix and stay true to using the XDA as the preamp directly connecte to my xpa2. Luckily nearly all of my SACD's are hybrid so I can get them into iTunes (albeit at lower resolution) to play via optical out of my MacBook pro or steaming through my new Christmas present Apple TV.

[Trey]

Dec 22, 2010 17:33:02 GMT -5 johnrice said:

Trey, are you certain those devices retain true SACD resolution?

www.audiocircle.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=l3c1crnk51t1qo0l5q7m0kk9lnfe1ua1&topic=82217.0

[johnrice]

Thanks Trey. Definitely interesting.

[burki]

Hi,
which such solutions, you'll get a sound (I'm using for this the UMC-1 - the pre has the same function than the item from atlona - in combination with the XDA-1), but normally you'll have a "lost in sound", because SPDIF can't handle for example 192/24 (used for some DVD-As) and I also not shure, that you'll get the 88/24 out from the toslink on the atlona...
The question is, to which sampling rate the atlona will resample the input signal for the SPDIF out.
So it can be a better solution to use the analouge outputs from the Oppo and a analouge preamp.

By the way: I'm using also a Oppo BDP 83, a Cambridge Audio BD650 and a Marantz DV7001.
For DVD-As and SACDs I strongly preferr the Marantz analogue outputs against the Oppo oder CA (using there HDMI or analouge outputs)...

Greetings
Burkhardt

[Mr. Ben]

SACD discs store their data in DSD (Direct Stream Digital) format. CD's and DVD-A discs store it in PCM format. There is no standard for getting DSD data over the optical/coax digital connectors. Those cables don't have the bandwidth that is required, much like you can't send HD audio from a BluRay over those cables either. Many DVD-A players will down-convert their PCM data to 2-channel 24bit/96khz for outputting over the cable, but it's not full resolution or all channels.

The only way to get digital output from a SACD is to use HDMI, or over Denon Link. Only some players support sending DSD over HDMI, and only some processors/receivers accept DSD over HDMI, so it's rare.

The XDA does not support DSD either. You're only going to get to listen to SACD's if you bypass the XDA.

[bobbyt]

I don't think it's an issue of bandwidth, it's an issue of trying to keep things on HDMI to protect content.

S/PDIF started out with a 3 Mb/s standard, but now is good for 125 megs. That's significantly more info than DSD needs (100 mb/s is 360 gigs/hr).