UMC-200 SACD Playback Issues

[qualityaudio]

Hello. I am the happy owner of a UMC-200 that I have enjoyed for about 6 years. I was not so happy with my Denon DVD player, which also plays DVD-A and SACD, but has become flakey so I've replaced it with a new Sony BDP-X800M2 4K Bluray player, which can also play DVD-A and SACD. 

The issue is with SACD playback. The UMC-200 will not play 2 channel discs in Stereo. It will only play them in All Stereo mode, which sends audio to all my speakers even though it is reporting that it is receiving 2 Ch PCM. 

I have the playback settings of the processor for PCM to "Stereo", and Multi PCM to "All Stereo". When I play a 2 channel disk there is no audio and that is what displays on the front of the processor. During playback, if I change the mode from Stereo to All Stereo, I still get no audio. However if I go into the Playback settings menu and change PCM to "All Stereo", I get audio through all of my speakers. Again, the processor display says it is playing a 2 Channel PCM source. 

The HDMI settings for the Sony BD player are "Auto", and DSD is set to "Off" which sends PCM through the HDMI connection. There is also a "Downmix" setting on the player that, as I understand it, automatically creates surround sound out of stereo, but this is off. Anything I've played through this machine works properly on the processor, except for 2 channel SACD's. I have no multi-channel SACD's to test but I have to assume that they will play back properly. 

When playing DVD-A disks, the UMC-200 works properly. If I choose "Advanced Resolution Surround" from the disk's setup menu, the processor reports that it is receiving multi-channel PCM (or L-PCM) and switches to "All Stereo" as it should, and choosing "Advanced Resolution Stereo" on the disk switches the processor to "Stereo" automatically, again as you would expect. 

The player is connected directly to an HDMI input on the processor and not going through my TV first. The only thing I haven't tried yet is to connect the Audio Only HDMI output of the player to the processor, but I would then have to run a second extra long HDMI cable to the TV, and I'm dubious that would make any difference. I could also try connecting audio to the processor using COAX but then I'd have to change settings every time I want to play an SACD and again I'm dubious that would work either. 

I'm certain that there is some setting I haven't found that will fix the problem, but can't find it. Am I limited by some compatibility issue with the processor or is there something else I can try? 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. 

[KeithL]

As you already know the UMC-200 does not support DSD... so the only way it can play SACDs is if they are converted to PCM by your disc player.

And, at that point, they are simply "PCM digital audio" (the UMC-200 doesn't "know" they came from an SACD.)

Just FYI.... "downmix" means to REDUCE the number of channels in the format.

So the "downmix" option is for converting surround sound content into stereo PCM... and not the other way around...

Creating surround sound from stereo content is called "UPmixing"...

It would be interesting to know what SAMPLE RATE your Sony is using when it converts SACDs to PCM.

Sony players tend to convert DSD from SACDs to 176k PCM (which is a slightly unusual sample rate).

I'm sot sure whether the UMC-200 will handle 176k PCM via HDMI or not (it is an old unit and I don't have one to try it on).

(This may cause some options to work as expected but others not to.)

You might try the "downmix" option on the Sony and see what happens...

(It MIGHT adjust the sample rate as well as the channel format. If so, the result may be something the UMC-200 handles better.)

Most players are blocked from giving you digital audio from SACDs (specifically) via Coax or Optical (it's a copy protection thing)...

However, not all of them follow that requirement, so you could try that as well.

Dec 7, 2020 9:51:48 GMT -5 qualityaudio said:

Hello. I am the happy owner of a UMC-200 that I have enjoyed for about 6 years. I was not so happy with my Denon DVD player, which also plays DVD-A and SACD, but has become flakey so I've replaced it with a new Sony BDP-X800M2 4K Bluray player, which can also play DVD-A and SACD. 

The issue is with SACD playback. The UMC-200 will not play 2 channel discs in Stereo. It will only play them in All Stereo mode, which sends audio to all my speakers even though it is reporting that it is receiving 2 Ch PCM. 

I have the playback settings of the processor for PCM to "Stereo", and Multi PCM to "All Stereo". When I play a 2 channel disk there is no audio and that is what displays on the front of the processor. During playback, if I change the mode from Stereo to All Stereo, I still get no audio. However if I go into the Playback settings menu and change PCM to "All Stereo", I get audio through all of my speakers. Again, the processor display says it is playing a 2 Channel PCM source. 

The HDMI settings for the Sony BD player are "Auto", and DSD is set to "Off" which sends PCM through the HDMI connection. There is also a "Downmix" setting on the player that, as I understand it, automatically creates surround sound out of stereo, but this is off. Anything I've played through this machine works properly on the processor, except for 2 channel SACD's. I have no multi-channel SACD's to test but I have to assume that they will play back properly. 

When playing DVD-A disks, the UMC-200 works properly. If I choose "Advanced Resolution Surround" from the disk's setup menu, the processor reports that it is receiving multi-channel PCM (or L-PCM) and switches to "All Stereo" as it should, and choosing "Advanced Resolution Stereo" on the disk switches the processor to "Stereo" automatically, again as you would expect. 

The player is connected directly to an HDMI input on the processor and not going through my TV first. The only thing I haven't tried yet is to connect the Audio Only HDMI output of the player to the processor, but I would then have to run a second extra long HDMI cable to the TV, and I'm dubious that would make any difference. I could also try connecting audio to the processor using COAX but then I'd have to change settings every time I want to play an SACD and again I'm dubious that would work either. 

I'm certain that there is some setting I haven't found that will fix the problem, but can't find it. Am I limited by some compatibility issue with the processor or is there something else I can try? 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. 

[qualityaudio]

Hi Keith and thanks for the quick reply.

Turns out I do have one multi-channel SACD and with the settings I posted, the UMC-200 plays it properly in All Stereo mode, and reports it is getting multi-channel PCM at 176.4KHz, so it is able to handle that bit rate. Strangely, after playing this disk then switching to a 2 channel title, the processor stays in All Stereo mode even though I have Playback set to "Stereo", and I get no audio until I change this setting to All Stereo. Different pathways to the same setting achieve different results.

Incidentally, the player has an option to read different layers of the SACD but changing this setting did nothing.

I'll have to give the coax connection a try next. I've already tried changing the Downmix setting but that didn't work. BTW I do know what the word means, but Sony has used it improperly. It applies Dolby surround, PLII presumably, to Stereo content.

[qualityaudio]

After changing the HDMI setting on the BD player from auto to PCM, I managed to get audio, Sort of. The first track I played worked perfectly and then when I went to the track listing and chose a different track it started playing without audio. Damn! I was able to get it to play again and without manually changing tracks it played the entire disk. It seems to me that there is some disagreement between the disk player and the UMC 200 and they don’t get past the handshake every time.

The downside here is if I want the processor to handle Dolby or DTS processing I have to go back into the settings of the disc player and switch back to auto. A minor issue I guess.

I guess I will be looking for a new processor before too long.