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

Hello, I just learned a painful lesson. I'm guessing that not many people will know this so I'm going to put it in here.

The audio on a SACD is encrypted.
If I were to purchase a SACD / CD player I have nothing to worry about. The Audio is un-encrypted inside the player.
However if I were to purchase a SACD / CD Transport made my brand Z, I would have to purchase a brand Z DAC???
Apparently Sony who owns the SACD format mandated that the audio on the SACD itself is encrypted and
the digital output from a SACD transport is ALSO encrypted. It looks like the actual un-encryption is done in the DAC.
There is no standard for doing the un-encryption so every manufacturer has their own proprietary way of doing this.
So I cant use a Esoteric SACD transport and an Auralic DAC which is what I tried to do?
londontk
krell_fan1's avatar
krell_fan1
100 posts
 
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.”

stevecham
3,340 posts
 
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/


morningstaraudio's avatar
morningstaraudio
154 posts
 
This is why a Marantz SA-10 is in my near future.
gerryah930's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
gerryah930
144 posts
 
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. 
rwwear
2,867 posts
 
Here's an inexpensive way to get DSD playback through a DAC.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Singxer-SU-1-XU208-XMOS-USB-Digital-interface-DSD256-PCM-384kHz-I2S-HDMI-output/263653745722?hash=item3d62fce43a:g:MqoAAOSw6n5Xv913
FAQ: What is DoP (DSD over PCM)?

The original idea for DoP was invented by dCS in 2011. It involves taking groups of 16 adjacent 1-bit samples from a DSD stream and packing them into the lower 16 bits of a 24/176.4 data stream. Data from the other channel of the stereo pair is packed the same way. A specific marker code in the top 8 bits identifies the data stream as DoP, rather than PCM. The resulting DoP stream can be transmitted through existing 24/192-capable USB, AES, Dual AES or SPDIF interfaces to a DoP-compatible DAC, which reassembles the original stereo DSD data stream COMPLETELY UNCHANGED.

If something goes wrong and the data stream is decoded as PCM, the output will be low-level noise with faint music in the back ground, so it fails safely. This can happen if the computer erases the marker code by applying a volume adjustment.
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