He meant’s perhaps the needed firmware for playing SACD-R’s (burned DVDs from a SACD iso).
I’m ripping SACDs with a Cambridge Audio CXU, which is also an alternative.
Possibly but I doubt it since it was not on the table, so to speak.
Yes, there are several alternatives to the Oppos.
An interesting read:
Thanks for the link. I’ve skimmed through and it’s not very technical as far as I can tell. One thing in particular caught my attention:
“For example, when Sony decided to archive their analog master libraries to DSD64 back in 1995, they were wrong to believe that these masters would be future-proof and able to reproduce any consumer format. The fact is, these masters could only properly reproduce a format that was divisible by 44.1KHz. So any modern 96KHz or 192KHz recording created from DSD64 master files have quantization errors.”
That is incorrect. Quantization errors have nothing to do with sample rate conversion, and any rate can be converted to any other rate, regardless of their ratio, with high accuracy.
I am sure this is answered, but I fear I will lose your post once I am done reading all 64 posts.
Most—if not all—BIS multichannel releases are available for download at eclassical.com. They are priced reasonable (by the minute instead of by the track), and if you create a profile and sign up for their newsletter, they have great deals on new releases. Most of my multichannel classical purchases are BIS and through eclassical. It is just a great deal!
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I buy quite a few SACDs. Not because I adore the format, but MFSL and Intervention Records still release titles on SACD. If they switched to Blu-ray 24/192, I would be over the moon, to be honest. Easy to rip and read by software and hardware.
I rip all my SACDs with an old Pioneer I got off eBay for about $70, and it works near flawless, but it won’t last forever, and finding a reliable SACD ripper in the future may be quite difficult. All of my DSF files are read by Roon, and I am starting to think I don’t mind the PCM conversion where necessary with some of my DACs. But if I can’t financially rip SACDs, I may stop purchasing them. I don’t want them tied to a physical format…and that is just how I roll. Playing files off a drive will survive far longer than physical media in my world.
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As the OP, I want to thank each and every one onf you for contributing your ideas and expertise. I just received a SACD friendly Player and will be spending the weekend making mistakes trying to rip some SACD disks. I’ll report on my progress, or lack of it, next week.
But whatever the outcome, thanks much for your thoughts and ideas.
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I would not be concerned. Average Joes are all in on streaming movies, thus dumping their few years old BD players right and left. Sony BD players compatible with the SACD ripping hack are all over thrift stores for $5-15. eBay is overpriced now in that regard.
AJ
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Hi, you inspired me to do two comparisons:
No1:
I compared 44,1 KHz PCM upsampled to 384 KHz vs. the 2,8 MHz DSD from the same Hybrid SACD
Yamina, How deep is the Ocean:
0:00-1:00 Echo of the knocking noise more detailed, Vocals more thrilling in DSD
Diana Krall, The Girl in the other room:
No clear difference, maybe the dynamic pulse at 1:00 in PCM was a bit more dynamic than the DSD
No2:
same tracks, but PCM converted to 2,8 MHz DSD by Roon DSP vs. the native DSD from the SACD.
Yamina,
Still preferred the DSD-Master, very slight difference
Diana,
No noticeable difference
Note 1: This wasn’t a blind test and time and test tracks were limited.
Note 2: The Volume Control was done in the analog domain of the DAC (I modified a Roon plugin for that). In previous listenings sessions I identified that as preferable
Looks like the DSD DAC will be my choice with the T&A DAC for the future, the signal path looks very clean.
In terms of Mastering my conclusion is: good music + good master + good DAC = Great Pleasure. It just need to be optimized to the format you are using
The T&A DAC 8 DSD is a very good DSD DAC.
Just to be clear, are you saying you compared the red book CD layer with the SACD DSD layer from a Hybrid disc, and then manipulated the CD rip to upsample and reformat? If so how can you be sure the CD layer and SACD layer were spawned from the same mastering? In my experience of Hybrid SACDs, the CD layer will sound different to the SACD for the very reason that they are mastered differently. If you want to test whether PCM is better than DSD or vice versa, you could :-
1 compare the CD layer with a file converted directly from that file to a DSD version.
2 compare the SACD layer with a version converted directly from that file to a PCM version.
You are right, I should have used the 44,1 KHz PCM without additional upsampling, but then difference might be even bigger. The check with both files in PCM is missing. Maybe this weekend…
Unfortunately I never talked to a mastering engineer for a specific SACD what he really did. (and why)
Anybody out here with first hand information?
I fully agree with you according to my experience
Some DSD is…but not all. There are plenty of SACDs out there that went straight from analog to DSD.
There are also software programs which extract the files from SACD disc images. I use TraX on my Mac.
What info are you asking about?
Yup. Getting the ISO off the disc is the relatively more difficult task.
Or the free cross-platform Sonore ISO2DSD which works very well.
http://www.sonore.us/iso2dsd.html
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Getting the ISO is not any more difficult than getting the individual tracks. With the software I use, it’s just a matter of selecting what you want.
My question to the mastering Engineer is: Have you really put modifications into the target files like volume adoption, compression, … for the pcm and dsd versions or is it a “simple” resampling of one 88.2 pcm intermediate file?
Or: Are there any other differences in PCM vs dsd Layer beyond the mathematical issues of doing any up/down/resampling and of course the quality of your DAC.
Of course it might differ from engineer to engineer and disc to disc.
Of course, it’s easy but you need specific hardware for it. You do not need anything special to extract the DSFs/DFFs from the ISO (once you have it).
More than likely.