[tuoppi]

To make it even simpler:
 
Analog is the actual sound you listen to. Analog sound does not have bits or sample rates at all. It's a continuous waveform.
 
Digital on the other hand is how the sound is stored on CD or SACD (or any other digital storage format). You can't listen to the digital signal itself. The digital signal has to be converted to analog before it can be listened.
 
Those analog outputs (red and white) on the player output the analog signal. Optical, coaxial and HDMI outputs output the digital signal which has to be still converted to analog at some other device before it can be listened.
 
Quote:

"Analogue" (with or without the "ue" on the end) refers to the sound you hear, with your ears. The waves of sound you learned about in school, in science class hopefully.  For audio, it can be stored on cassettes, vinyl records and reel-to-reel tapes, to give some examples.  On those it is stored as groves on the records or differences in the magnetism on the tapes.  
 
"Digital" refers to the storage of an analogue sound as 0's and 1's on a computer, CD, SACD, DVD or any of the other modern music systems.  To convert an analogue waveform to digital, the waveform is sampled a certain number of times per second -- for CD quality (16/44.1) this is 44,100 times, and each sample is given one of 65,535 different volume levels (2^16 = 65535). That's where the numbers come from.

 

[gsilver]

Quote:

hrmm wonder if you could use something like this
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882816044&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Cables-_-Nippon+Labs-_-82816044
 
change hdmi to optical, and what the result would be

I'm pretty sure that you'd get silence. The entire reason why SACD manufacturers don't want SACD over optical is DRM, which isn't possible over optical. What that does is convert an unencrypted optical connection into an unencrypted HDMI connection. It won't convert an encrypted HDMI signal to optical.

 

[googleborg]

For the lulz i just put my digital coax cable into a phono input on my amp and this happened;
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzaN-REQitU
 
you could vaguely hear the music, is the crosstalk inside my PC that bad 

 
 
 
Quote:

You can't listen to the digital signal itself. The digital signal has to be converted to analog before it can be listened.
 

 

 

[elwappo99]

Can anyone who has this comment on the audio quality? I'm interested in this for SACD, and can't decide between this, a used maranntz, or the Sherwood SD-871 (which is now $100, was $700. I know very little in the CDP realm, so any advice would really be appreciated!

 

[kiteki]

 
Quote:

For the lulz i just put my digital coax cable into a phono input on my amp and this happened;
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzaN-REQitU
 
you could vaguely hear the music, is the crosstalk inside my PC that bad 

  

That video was Lol.
 
p.s. I clicked on your youtube profile page and you have good taste in movies.
 
 

 

[kiteki]

To the finnish guy thanks your explanation was really simple.
 
Now I know that my S370 -> Vintage Amp -> Headphones, is all I need, and upgrading to stuff involving optical or HDMI is unnecessary.
so the only link in the chain I can upgrade is my Amp, which would be costly and I'm hardly ever home so that won't happen.  Looks like my home CD/SACD rig is complete for now.  Which is good news.  Time to buy some SACD's!

 

[elwappo99]

Quote:

To the finnish guy thanks your explanation was really simple.
 
Now I know that my S370 -> Vintage Amp -> Headphones, is all I need, and upgrading to stuff involving optical or HDMI is unnecessary.
so the only link in the chain I can upgrade is my Amp, which would be costly and I'm hardly ever home so that won't happen.  Looks like my home CD/SACD rig is complete for now.  Which is good news.  Time to buy some SACD's!

Any comments on the SQ of the s370?

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

Any comments on the SQ of the s370?

The Sony BDP-S370 was in a "group test" of Blu-ray players conducted in the October 2010 issue of British hi-fi magazine "Hi-Fi World".  The winner of the "group test" was the Cambridge Audio 650BD, which cost about 4X the price of the Sony S370.  However, the S370 came in second and was called "The Bargain of the Century".  The S370's CD and SACD performance was cited as outstanding, especially through its analogue outputs.  I would suggest anyone interested in the S370 to get a copy of this "group test".
 
As for a DSD DAC (since the S370 outputs DSD through its HDMI output), in the September 2010 issue of "Hi-Fi World", the magazine reviewed a Yamaha RX-V567 home theater receiver.  The magazine found that, to its surprise, that it decodes DSD (from the above mentioned CA 650BD when it's put into DSD mode), and indicate so on its front panel display.  I'm not sure whether the European version of the 567 receiver is different from an US version, but such a receiver has a street price of roughly $400.00.  From there, you can either use the headphone out of the receiver or connect an external headphone amp.
 
Btw, I do own the S370....unfortunately, I have yet to open it since my system is in disarray.  

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

SACD's can have multi-channel as well as Stereo DSD mixes. What you listen to depends on how you set up the player. The player will even down-mix multi-channel to stereo if you tell the player that you want it to do so.

I am not sure whether you can down-mix a multi-channel SACD mix.  The reason I say this is because Sony/Philips, the format's developers, mandated that a SACD must have a 2 channel stereo, or mono, mix.  You can't just have a multi-channel SACD mix on the disc.  In fact, the CD layer and the multi-channel SACD portion of a SACD are totally optional.  While it's true that after over 6,000 titles released worldwide, there're a number of multi-channel only SACDs, the mandate of Sony/Philips still holds true for 99.9 of all SACD titles.

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

Just to make sure I'm on the right track, this is how I intend on listening to SACD on the BDP-S370.
 
SACD disc -> S370 -> white/red stereo RCA out to stereo RCA in (AUX) on my AMP -> Headphones (SA5000)
 
My amp is a vintage thing without any chips or processors, it was a high-end $1000+ unit in the 70's, I think it sounds great, my query is can an amp like that render 24bit/196kHz faithfully?  since the BDP-S370 is converting the 1-bit DSD stream to 24/196kHz via the Wolfson DAC's to the analog RCA outs I'm assuming the analog signal will be fine on my amp?  I just want to make sure.
 
The next part I'm a little confused about is if I indeed invest in a receiver with HDMI and DSD decoding so the S370 can pass the 1bit DSD stream straight to the receiver, how will the receiver "decode" the DSD stream and how will it be output?
I.E.
- If I connect 5 speakers to the back of the receiver, what signal are they receiving in the copper wires?
- If I connect the receiver via 2-ch RCA to my vintage amp, what signal will my amp be receiving?
- If I connect my headphones directly to the receiver, what signal will they be receiving?
 
In short if the receiver decodes the 1-bit DSD stream to 24/196 analog out in all cases, then I can't see any point in the receiver apart from multi-channel, which is pointless since I don't own any speakers.  If the receiver outputs the 1-bit/2822kHz via the 2-ch RCA, headphone-jack, or speaker output, then I can see it as improving the fidelity, since the audio signal will be pure along the whole chain from
Laser reading the SACD -> HDMI pure 1-bit output -> receiver pure 1-bit input/output -> Headphones/Speakers -> Me

 
It's all in how it's set up.  You can configure a SACD to play 2 channel SACD by default, even when you insert a SACD that contains a multi-channel  mix.
 
Regarding the receiver, if you're a "purist", then you need to look for a receiver that will do a DSD>>>analog conversion.  No PCM in between that conversion.  However, whether you can hear the benefits of such a conversion vs. one that goes to PCM depends on you.  Some people actually prefer a conversion of going to PCM first, before the signal going to analogue.
 

 

[kiteki]

 
Quote:

Any comments on the SQ of the s370?

I wish I could, but I pretty much just bought it and then left, it was on sale for $200 and I had a $50 voucher, and then I flew to Indonesia a couple days later.
 
I think your best bet is the SCD-XE800 since it's a dedicated player, and not a dvd/blu-ray player with SACD on the side.  A dedicated player will almost always sound better http://www.sony.co.uk/product/hfc-cd-player/scd-xe800
 
Earlier in this thread I waved it off for it's lack of optical/coax sacd output, but now I've arduously come to the conclusion that optical/coax and sacd don't mix, and RCA stereo is the way to go.
 
Looking at the SCD-XE800 it seems to be 10cm thick, and all it does is play CD and SACD.
 
The BDP-S370 is like... less than 3cm thick... and it does all kinds of stuff and is a highly regarded blu-ray player.  Then again the PR dept. at Sony is probably thinking that blu-ray consumers want the thinnest sleekest player and audiophiles like huge and heavy units along with their leather couches and towering speakers.
 
 
 

 

[kiteki]

 
Quote:

The Sony BDP-S370 was in a "group test" of Blu-ray players conducted in the October 2010 issue of British hi-fi magazine "Hi-Fi World".  The winner of the "group test" was the Cambridge Audio 650BD, which cost about 4X the price of the Sony S370.  However, the S370 came in second and was called "The Bargain of the Century".  The S370's CD and SACD performance was cited as outstanding, especially through its analogue outputs.  I would suggest anyone interested in the S370 to get a copy of this "group test".
 
As for a DSD DAC (since the S370 outputs DSD through its HDMI output), in the September 2010 issue of "Hi-Fi World", the magazine reviewed a Yamaha RX-V567 home theater receiver.  The magazine found that, to its surprise, that it decodes DSD (from the above mentioned CA 650BD when it's put into DSD mode), and indicate so on its front panel display.  I'm not sure whether the European version of the 567 receiver is different from an US version, but such a receiver has a street price of roughly $400.00.  From there, you can either use the headphone out of the receiver or connect an external headphone amp.
 
Btw, I do own the S370....unfortunately, I have yet to open it since my system is in disarray.  

Wow... I always knew I had good taste in Hi-Fi... bargain of the century!! 
 
Thanks so much soundboy, now I have a reason to buy some SACD's while I'm in this third world country.  I too own the S370 and have yet to listen to it, it's hidden under my bed over 5000km away.
 
 

 

[kiteki]

Well here's what that HiFi World magazine October 2010 issue has to say about the S370's sound quality:
 
"the analogue outputs were excellent, clear, crisp and dynamic, but in stereo of course; they did a good job with CD... Digital audio via optical link was full bodied, smooth and easy going but hardly better than the analogue outputs ... HDMI was a little harder in tonal character ... SACD sounded as easy going and luxurious as usual ... "
 

 

[kiteki]

 
You know, when I think over it, from the 1950's to 1999 storage formats and audio-quality was on a steady rise, the storage format peaked at SACD, and since then we've been declining, and now we have an SACD player for $140 that sounds excellent, and these units used to cost, what, $900+?  Yes now I see why it's the bargain of the century =)
 
Now if only people would start buying this thing instead of rubbish like portable amps.

 

[elwappo99]

Quote:

Now if only people would start buying this thing instead of rubbish like portable amps.

Sounds like you have a vendetta....
 
I think i'll keep my eye out for the s370. Seems like a solid unit, and although it may not be as great as a dedicated SACD unit, I'm at the point where I'd appreciate the size, functionality and cost.