Have New L.K.S. HM-DA9038 with Oppo95 won't play SACD's, HDMI input on DAC is for 12S data

@dhollywood,

I’m the OP on the original LKS thread.

Yes the "hdmi" input on the LKS is NOT what we usually think of as hdmi. It is an i2s input. It will not properly receive an ordinary hdmi signal.

The problem with playing SACDs is NOT with the LKS. It is rather with the disk player, which I assume to be your Oppo. The Oppo is restricted by Sony from outputting SACD files (.dsf) through its coaxial or optical outputs.  You can blame Sony for having made our lives more complicated.

To play SACD files on the LKS (and they do sound GREAT on the LKS) you have to rip them and play them as .dsf files. Most do that by ripping to a hard disk and using some kind of device to input them to the Amanero board on the LKS through the USB input. I use a simple lap-top computer. But there are lots of other devices.

.dsf files can also go in through the LKS’s i2s inputs, but devices that do that are not so common. The Amanero board actually converts the USB input to i2s.

Couple of things. There are people that will mod anything, and the spacious layout of the LKS just feeds that hobby. Yet in its un-modded form it has been compared to the very best and the very expensive. The mods being done are quite sophisticated--at the moment over at head-fi, substituting in a new femto-clock.

I am surprised that you have had trouble with the ios. Given that you meet the Mac OSX 10.6+ requirement, I would have thought it would be simple, and much easier than Windows for which a driver has to be installed. LKS usually also recommends a program like JRiver or Foobar. I’m pretty sure you will need one of these to set the right output. Before you decide to give up on it, I would recommend that you write to the designer. He is Jinbo at LKS. Email: bleerock@126.com His English is excellent and he will try to help by email. Could be a day or two turn-around. He has explained things very clearly to me when I needed help.

If you want to play disks I guess that’s OK, but if you can get the Amanero board to respond to your computer, you may find it so much more convenient to rip all of your disks and play them from a hard disk. There are lots of ways to do it, but I bypass my Oppo 105 and use JRiver and control the whole process from my phone. Even if you want to use the the Oppo and its coax output, if you rip your pcm disks you can play them controlling from your phone using the Oppo app. Most people I run into believe the SQ is better that way than playing the disk directly. I certainly do.

Good luck, and let us know how it works out.

@mahler123,

The Briston costs about $2000 more than the LKS,  Not to mention an extra $250 for its remote control.  Really!  The LKS has a much more robust power supply and a fully discrete balanced analog section.  Comes with a remote.  I guess one could argue the relative merits of the DAC chips and clocks used in each.  Much too much of a premium though simply to have the hdmi input for a few disks.

Besides, why would anyone in 2019 want to deal routinely with silver disks for audio, except as a file delivery device?.  With your Oppo you can easily rip the DSD disks

Which NAD DAC are you referring to?

@dhollywood,

You can only run SACDs through the LKS (or almost all separate DACs that will accept .dsf files--and not all do) if you rip the SACDs to the .dsf files. Otherwise you will have to run your SACDs through your Oppo and its built in DAC, ignoring the LKS, using the disks.

You ask about how I use my phone. I have ripped all my CDs and SACDs and gathered other music by downloading PCM files all on to a hard disk. Initially it was a small USB disk. Now it's a Synology NAS. That disk is plugged into a small lap-top near the audio system on which I run JRiver. (The NAS can send the music files to the lap-top by wi-fi, but I find the SQ better if by hard wire) There is a USB connection between the lap-top and the LKS. JRiver has a phone app. Bottom line is that I sit in my chair and use the phone app to call up any of the music on the hard disk. I don't do network streaming, but if I wanted to I could just receive the streams through the lap-top. (I also run JRiver on an office desk top so I can listen to all of the music there too. JRiver converts the .dsf files to PCM for that computer. I use the desk-top for all the ripping and file management.)

With a screen between the speakers I do video with disks on the Oppo and sound out to the LKS, also youtube music through the Oppo using the coax connection.

Another option, but just for playing PCM files, as from the CDs, would be to use the Oppo 105 phone app to call up music from either of the hard disks and play them through the Oppo and to the LKS using the coaxial or optical connection.

@mahler123,

Ripping SACD disks is not "complicated". It's even easier, once set up, than ripping a CD though it takes a little longer as the files are larger. I do is put an SACD into the Oppo, bring up a small (free) program on any of the computers and press "execute." That's it. I'm sure you can set it up and do it. You might, as I did, even find an improvement in the SQ.

Yes, ripping all the disks and setting up a management system can be major chore. I found JRiver to have a long learning curve--but in the end it's really a great system to have where anything can be called up to play at your whim, and anywhere on the network, and without leaving your chair. And you have the NAS. For classical music listening especially, it is great to be able to quickly compare performances. You seem to have a large collection so I can understand the hesitation. But, on the other hand, keeping track of a large collection can be made much simpler with a good digital file system.

The most complete info on this DAC and possible mods is here:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/l-k-s-audio-mh-da004-dual-es9038pro-dac-van-dammes-double-impact.840...
All 1856 posts.  Happy reading.

Posts about the LKS 004 DAC actually began at the LKS 003 DAC thread around here:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/lks-audio-mh-da003.745032/page-48

You could also look here:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/31270-lks-audio-mh-da004/

Frankly, if I were you I would ignore all of this for a while and simply enjoy the DAC.  Putting your CDs on a hard disk and working out a convenient file system will pay rewards.  It's also not hard to rip your SACDs.  IMO the DAC is really quite fine out of the box.