Playing SACDs


Howdy,

A few months ago I changed my DAC from a Bryston BDP-3 to a CE Hugo TT2. My source of digital music is an Aurender N100H using USB to the Hugo. The change from BDP-3 to the Hugo was significant to my ears so I am as happy as I can be in that respect but... and there is always a but, isn't? I have a collection of ~150 SACDs which I enjoyed playing from my Oppo, through HDMI, to the BDP-3. Since the BDP-3 is gone and the Oppo can not pass SACD/DSD/PCM in its other digital outputs, I now have to use the onboard DAC of the Oppo and use its analog outputs. It does not sound bad... but it is not as good as it used to sound.

I am have been reading multiple posts here and in other forums but from what I can gather, there isn't a SACD transport that will output SACD (DSD/DoP/PCM), am I correct? I don't have that many movies anymore so I could get rid of the Oppo and get me a SACD transport if it would be possible to play SACDs without HDMI.

Any ideas or should I just suck it up and move on?

Thanks!

Ivan
smdb01us

Showing 6 responses by smdb01us

@melm, well I am officially an idiot. I just remembered that I never sold the old 103 the 203 replaced, LOL. I am now reading the posts on how to rip SACDs. Good weekend project!
@mahler123, I emailed GeerFab this morning asking about its price. We will see :-)
@melm I have thought about doing that several times... I am technology included (SW engineer) but for some reason I have never gone that route. Perhaps I need time to justify buying the HW just for that. Anyways, I have a UDP-203. I will check how expensive the used Oppos go for. Thank you for reminding me that.
@elevick, yes, I can play the CD stereo component of the hybrid SACD through the DAC but after testing and doing multiple A/B comparisons, I find that I ripped red book CD sounds better when ripped and then played through my Aurender—Hugo. My interest with this post was to explore playing SACDs, DSD64/128, from the Oppo without using its onboard DAC, which is the only way possible when you don’t use its HDMI port, it seems.

@melm Well, it is going to take me some time to rip through my SACD collection but I am making progress, 10 done, 100 plus to go... :) thank you again for reminding me of the process!