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

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. 

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.

Maybe a bit of a sidetrack but this isn't surprising - the transports + DACs I've tried can't even do pre-emphasis correctly, so expecting DSD to work is a real long shot. Some really good info and solutions in here though. I would like to be able to try i2s again at some point but what I'm getting out of just 75 ohm BNC is more than satisfactory for the moment. 

I have a Sony BD/SACD player. I feed the digital stream via HDMI cable into a recent model Onkyo receiver which specifies "DSD" decoding compatibility (in addition to Dolby, DTS, etc.) basically making the DAC external to the transport making my system a "mix-and-match" between two different manufacturers. AFAIK the bitstream signal coming out from the transport either by HDMI is not encrypted. It’s not 44.1kHz Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM) like your standard CD audio stream, but rather a Direct Stream Digital (DSD) signal sampled at 2.8MHz - entirely different method of encoding which you may be regarding as encrypted. My receiver recognizes the signal and "DSD" lights up on the display as well as on my TV screen when I’m listening to SACD discs. An SACD disc is basically a data DVD carrying DSD encoded audio data instead of PCM audio data.

rwwear2 I own a Singxer SU-1 and pair it to my PS Audio Directstream DAC. If you have a Directstream DAC the SU-1 can send raw DSD. While it is supported, you don't need to use DoP with this DAC if you're using the I2S port.