2. digital
  3. 187219-159065

SACD is VERY confusing

Seems there are thousands of folks out there buying and playing SACDs using coax or optical from a player to a DAC and thinking they are listening to the SACD layer and they are listening to the CD layer. I was assured the Denon DVD-2910,3910,5910 would play SACD through the digital outputs but on the back of the units they clearly state PMC from the digital outputs.....Seems the ONLY way to truly play a SACD is HDMI to HDMI.....Even stripping the audio off the HDMI signal returns it to PMC ..... And everything I've read states the analog outputs, stereo and 5.1 are PMC...

 

Oppo’s User Manual states: “Due to copyright restrictions, SACD audio cannot be sent through the coaxial or optical digital audio output. To listen to SACDs, please use the HDMI or analog audio connections.) IOW, with a DAC that is connected via coax or TOSLINK, you might be limited to playing the CD layer of a hybrid SACD.

I can't believe they would allow DSD files through analog outputs....Wouldn't this violate the whole copyright issue?

.....There are thousands of people out there buying SACDs and listening to them on their OPPO, Marantz or Denon ..."SACD" players, either through digital or analog and they are listening to the CD/44.1 layer.....This is nuts!

rbertalotto

Showing 2 responses by daveyf

daveyf's avatar
daveyf
2,835 posts
 

@tony1954   A good question. Possibly because the old factor of....greed, got the better of them. Cut off their nose to spite their face! Not the first time a large company( ies) have done this...and won't be the last.

daveyf's avatar
daveyf
2,835 posts
 

I recently added a stand alone DAC to my Esoteric DV60 Universal player. Before, I could play back SACD’s...through the DV-60. Now I cannot play these discs as SACD's. BUT, and here’s the thing, the improvement that the DAC made to the whole SQ is far superior than what the sound of SACD’s was through just the player alone. Surprisingly, even true with the CD layer of SACD played through the combo. ( and the DV-60 is no slouch on playback!) OTOH, the combo can play back DVD-A’s as this digital stream is passed through to the DAC. I looked at Paul’s very interesting video, and of course it made perfect sense. BUT, I do wonder if DVD-A’s could be ok from a copyright and artist royalty scenario, why SACD’s could not? Seems odd.

Also, I think that the idea of SACD is good, except I also think it was hyped too much. IME, the quality of the sound one is going to get is far more dependent on the quality of the original master recording, and a lot less on the the fact that is is a CD at 44.1 vs a SACD at DSD.

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