Question about DSD DACs

" I flatter myself that I too am not an average listener, but really all (or at least the vast majority) of us who indulge in this hobby are not average listeners. Just an unsupported-by-any-facts opinion..."

My advice would be to keep those "other types" away from your system. Every time they get near a pair of speakers, they just can't help themselves and start pushing in all the centers on the drivers. Its a travesty. I get nauseous every time I go into Best Buy and witness the damage on a mass scale. Maybe Trump will finally do something about the problem, but until then, lock your listening room door.

I flatter myself that I too am not an average listener, but really all (or at least the vast majority) of us who indulge in this hobby are not average listeners. Just an unsupported-by-any-facts opinion...

" I've had SACDs in the collection for quite a few years now, and though what I hear is (to agree with the above post) perhaps a slight improvement over good old 44.1 (well, 96 now with my reclocker), I wonder if an average listener could hear the difference in a blind test? That's why I was so curious about hearing unconverted DSD."

Hopefully, we don't fall into the category of average listeners. But I think I should clarify the comments in my last post. I didn't mean to suggest that the difference between SACD and CD was very small. Its not. I think many people expected the difference to be like vinyl and CD. Some things a record can do fairly easily that it takes a very good CD player to equal. The difference SACD makes isn't that big, but the format is still clearly better than CD. If you were to get a universal player like the Ayre 5 U2, you can easily hear the differences between formats.

At the moment I'm pretty happy with my Redbook setup though the temptation to tweak/upgrade is always lurking. Running CDs (I have a pretty sizable collection of these) and the one or two DVD-A discs I have through the Bryston BDA1, enhanced by a Wyred4Sound reclocker, the sound is very pleasing.

 My first SACD player was a Sony DVP-NS500V, ca 2002, but I didn't buy it for that, I bought it to be our first DVD player. The SACD capability was sort of a bonus. As I recall the thing cost all of about $200. I still have it and it still works. Upgrading to the CA 751BD (2012) was an expedient to play Blu-Rays, and to be fair, as a universal disc player it's actually a very good machine. However, subsequent enhancements (outboard DAC and reclocker) have made an enormous difference to its audio performance. (It's video performance was excellent from the get-go, so no complaints there).

I've had SACDs in the collection for quite a few years now, and though what I hear is (to agree with the above post) perhaps a slight improvement over good old 44.1 (well, 96 now with my reclocker), I wonder if an average listener could hear the difference in a blind test? That's why I was so curious about hearing unconverted DSD.

" It sounds like this isn’t as simple a process as I’d hoped for, that is, putting a disc in the spinner and having it play back the SACD layer in unconverted DSD format. Experimenting with my system as it stands, I actually like the CD layer better (it’s a little warmer and less shrill), but it’s running through entirely different processing than the SACD layer, which relies on Cambridge Audio’s own onboard DAC chips instead of my outboard DAC. I do have the system set to read the SACD layer in stereo, so it is presumably the PCM conversion I'm hearing through the speakers."

That's really good observation. For the most part, you're correct, but I would add a bit more to it. When SACD first came out, most of us did the same thing, myself included. We all bought reasonably priced SACD players to try out the format. Most of us were underwhelmed with the results. And the reason turned out to be fairly simple. Did I really expect the mass market Sony 9000ES player I bought for SACD's to outperform my 10k Wadia? I did, and that's why I bought the thing to begin with, but it turns out that the superior format, by itself, can't overcome certain obstacles. We're not talking about comparing records to CD's. The difference between CD and SACD isn't that big. A well designed CD player can easily outperform a run of the mill SACD player.

Taking the above into consideration, this is what I would add to your post. You're not considering the analog portion of whatever dac/cd player you're listening to. Yes, the difference may be due to technical factors on the digital side of things. But its just as likely the differences you are hearing are due to the analog portions of the dac and disc player.  Its all to easy to forget that the A in DAC, is half of the component, and it should be treated as such. 

My advice would be to focus on what you listen to the most. If you listen to 90% CD's, focus on that. Get Redbook playback right first. Once you have that settled, then explore other formats if they interest you. But whatever you do, don't go after new formats at the expense of others. 

Bryston's BDA3 is the answer in your case I believe. There is NO conversion according to their brochure (http://bryston.com/PDF/brochures/BDA3_BROCHURE.pdf): "

Separate signal paths were engineered specifically for high resolution PCM and native DSD. Audio is processed in their native format with no conversion ensuring each song is totally bit perfect—an exact replica of the master recording."

Many thanks for the responses, and especially to Gigi for the link to The Absolute Sound’s article, which was very enlightening, given my somewhat underdeveloped level of technical knowledge. It sounds like this isn’t as simple a process as I’d hoped for, that is, putting a disc in the spinner and having it play back the SACD layer in unconverted DSD format. Experimenting with my system as it stands, I actually like the CD layer better (it’s a little warmer and less shrill), but it’s running through entirely different processing than the SACD layer, which relies on Cambridge Audio’s own onboard DAC chips instead of my outboard DAC. I do have the system set to read the SACD layer in stereo, so it is presumably the PCM conversion I'm hearing through the speakers.

At some point it looks like I’m going to have to learn the ins and outs of inserting my computer into the process which is something I’d hoped to avoid (old dog/new tricks issues here). Since the literature for my CA 751 BD claims to send DSD over its HDMI output, my question then becomes: what happens to this data when (if) it reaches a DSD capable DAC? Or is this just an unworkable setup, which is the impression I’m getting from the responses so far?

DSD capable DACs are able to decode DSD file formats (such as DSF, DFF or DSD ISO) to analog without conversion to PCM. One must feed these files to a DSD DAC using a computer running appropriate software (JRIVER, HQPLAYER…) thru USB, firewire or LAN connections. These music files can be obtained either by buying from music download sites or ripping from your own SACDs with a special version of a PS3 loaded with SACD ripping software.
Some who prefer their music decoded with a DSD DAC also upsample their PCM music library (wav, flac, ape…) to 2xDSD or even 4xDSD (if they have a 4xDSD capable DAC) although one would need a powerful computer to do the 4xDSD upsampling.
Personally, I have an 8 year old computer that can do PCM upsampling to 2xDSD without sweat.
Check out this article with lot more infomation: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/the-abcs-of-dsd-downloads/

Best, Gigi

Here is a link from dCS regarding DoP

http://www.dcsltd.co.uk/support/what-is-dop-dsd-over-pcm/

There IS DSD over S/PDIF, commonly called DoP, but I dont' know who supports it.

It is not a downgrade, as the data is still DSD, but it is bandwidth limited. If you want to play super DSD files (whatever the current term is) you'll need USB.

Best,

Erik

Normally HDMI is needed to output DSD from a transport to an outboard DAC since it has copy protection built into the protocol. If you use other means (such as coaxial SPDIF or Toslink), then DSD is usually downsampled to PCM. Unfortunately, I think your player outputs DSD data according to the HDMI spec whereas most DAC makers seem to favor the I2S protocol over the HDMI connection. So your choices for an outboard converter will be severely limited.

One thing to keep in mind is that with the analog outputs the player should be reading the SACD layer of a hybrid disc if you have SACD Priority set to Multichannel or Stereo in your setup menu. That may already be the case in your system.

I do all my DSD via USB. :)

I have a dozen or less DSD albums and 10 of them are downloads.

Best,

Erik

The new Audio Alchemy has I2S as well.

Of the 2 DACs you mention, only the Bryston BDA-3 can accept DSD via HDMI. The PS DAC has I2S and not HDMI, which is a totally different PIN configuration.
So if you use HDMI or a HDMI to I2S, you will actually be hearing DSD without PCM conversion. As a fyi, there is also the new Holo DAC that has I2S port instead of HDMI and can do DSD. They also have a converter for HDMI (from a blu-ray player) to I2S.