Beware of SACD Transports -- they probably will not work with your favorite DAC

I’m wondering if the OP bought the Grandioso.  It’s a two chassis transport that feeds a two chassis separate DAC via HDMI cables.  The transport is 33K Euros and the two DACs together are the same.  It’s reviewed in the January issue of Hi Fi News.
  If so the OP perhaps thought he didn’t need the DAC and wasn’t prepared to be shelling out 66K Euros.  If this is the case, two observations:
1) His Esoteric dealer did him a major disservice, and
2) consider getting the Bryston DAC3 that I referenced earlier.  It’s a heck of a DAC, will accept the HDMI from the Esoteric, and only cost him about 3K Euros

SACD is a proprietary format. It must be played using an SACD player or a transport with SACD outputs. Not many player/transports have that, if they do they are $$$$$.

I have a Oppo 105, which I can use as a transport(bypassing the internal dacs) BUT it will NOT output SACD signal UNLESS the signal receiving dac has a SACD input, and even then not always will they sink up. And while the 105 has a volume control to play SACDs, it is average at best, meaning the resultant SACD signal is highly compromised

hth

OK, i have not researched this specifically.  but here is my logic and belief.  If your transport outputs S/PDIF as the digital signal to the DCA, that is a standard. I know of no encryption on S/PDIF since it must be backwards compatible.

This makes me believe that there is no problem so long as your transport decrypts the SACD. SACD is basically DSD.
G

itsjustme

... there is no problem so long as your transport decrypts the SACD.

But that’s the problem - very, very few transports "decrypt" SACD . SACD is a proprietary format, as others have noted here.

Right. If the SACD encryption scheme is anything like that used for DVD, or Blu-Ray, the concept was a closed system that did not permit users to access the raw digital stream at hi-rez, to avoid piracy issues. The only way to decode the encrypted material was to use a licensed device and that did not afford a digital output that was ’in the clear.’ This was done through a patent pool as I recall, with licensing arrangements among CE manufacturers of hardware and "software" content owners, who did not relish the idea of putting out hi-rez copies of their content on an ’open’ format.
I don’t really do much with SACD- in fact, i only installed digital audio in my main system in the past 6 months, but have an Oppo that I use in the home theatre system. As I recall, one can use the analog outputs from the Oppo to play back SACD by letting the internal DAC and decryption function occur entirely within the Oppo box; I also recall that the hdmi output on the Oppo, which goes into an AV pre-pro (used mainly for AV, not for music listening), should be able to decode the SACD. But, the quality of the AV pre-pro, while sufficient for my purposes for movies/TV shows, isn’t something that I would normally use for serious music listening. As to transports and DACs that are within this protocol, I have no idea. I suspect that the huge uptick in stand-alone DACs has occurred after SACD already dwindled in the marketplace. I also suspect that the cost of the license to permit SACD decryption on a DAC otherwise intended for two channel audio would have only added to the retail cost of the DAC and was probably viewed as a limited market, but i’m speculating.