Beware of SACD Transports -- they probably will not work with your favorite DAC
Usually you need both the transport and DAC from the same company. Mix and match seldom works.Would agree for the most part but it has been proved by Mahler here and Stereophile that you can output the sacd dsd via hdmi from Oppo 103/105 (possibly 93/95 too ) into a Bryston BDA3 quite successfully. And by all accounts it sounds pretty darn good. |
PS Audio has delivered an INCREDIBLE solution to resolve this issue. The company uses a proprietary protocol with their new DMP Player and the amazing DS DAC. Use of an HDMI cable delivers a digital handshake using a high speed data transfer between transport and the DAC. Based on what I understand the manufacturer of the DAC must pay licensing fees to Sony in order to be granted permission to decode and play music. Some chose to pay others did not. I2S is the technology innovated by PS Audio but any maker can use it, from what I understand. I’m pasting some information I copied directly from the website below, and let me tell you, the overall experience of this player is simply unbelievable for both CD and SACD. See below: “Now, with the introduction of PS Audio’s revolutionary new memory player, DMP, owners of our DirectStream series of DACs can uncover all that they have been missing. Based on a proprietary handshake protocol between DMP and PS Audio DACs, through our advanced I²S interface, pure DSD is streamed to, and processed in, the same reference quality DAC used by mastering engineers.” |
So much misinformation out there: PS Audio did not invent/innovate I2S. That has existed all along in the Sony Philips Digital Interface (SPDIF). PS Audio simply chose to walk upstream and access the multiple data streams coming out of the transport before it was combined into a single data stream for the DAC. I2S is the standard protocol, PS Audio chose to use it with their players and DACs. See Paul McGowan’s explanation: https://www.psaudio.com/askpaul/what-in-the-world-is-i2s/ |
Most high-end audiophile brands, including dCS, EMM Labs, MSB Technologies and Esoteric, provide a proprietary, brand-specific optical link from their own transports (and their CD players which can serve as a transport as well, providing a direct optical link bypassing any built-in DAC or upsampler) to their own DACs, just like PS Audio. The real question should be - is it possible to re-engineer this optical link, allowing transports from one brand to link to the DAC from another brand. The answer is yes, but I am not going to explain how to do it. |
