NAD M5 no sound from Digital Coax out SACD

XLR may or may not give better performance. Why not just try it both ways and listen?

thanks Ncarv. thats what i'm going to do.

to clarify i'm using the coax out on my M5 for digital. the XLR out on the M5 is AES/EBU and the DAC dosent have an input for that.

I guess what i need to figure out is should i go analog balanced or RCA for the SACD or vice versa for CD. What i'm trying to do is to get the best sound for both formats. i have way more CDs than SACDs so i probably will use the balanced connection for my DAC (CD signal path). i haven't done much experimentation but i would assume the XLR connetion would provide better performance.

I assume you have a pair of RCA's from the DAC to the M3 on one input. Continue to use the single digital XLR cable from the M5 to the DAC for CD's and then also run another pair of RCA's directly from the M5 to the M3, bypassing the DAC, for SACD. You will need to change the input on the M3 depending on what you are playing, CD or SACD.

On my Sony 5400, the digital out won't work when playing the SACD layer on hybrid discs, but it does work when playing the CD layer.

Thanks for the input. I learned something new.

Not sure how I'm going to hook things up now. I'm going from my PS Audio DAC to a NAD M3 integrated using the 1 balanced input on the M3.

So what do you think is the best scenario:

go from:
M5 to M3 via balanced for SACD
M5 to DAC to M3 via RCA for CD
or
M5 to M3 via RCA for SACD
M5 to DAC to M3 via balanced for CD

I don't have a quality RCA interconnect on hand to test out

SACD won't play through digital hook-up or DAC. Use a pair of analog interconnects from the M5 directly to an input on your pre.