[acs236]

Something I've been wondering about lately was brought back to my attention by the RIAA thread, but rather than crap on the already craptacular RIAA thread I figure I'll start a new one.

Last time I checked (a while ago, I confess), no SACD or DVD Audio player would pass a high bandwidth digital signal to a decoder -- meaning, you have to rely on the perhaps mediocre DACs in the player. I believe 96khz audio is downsampled to 48khz when passed through the digital output. The reason, I believe, was piracy concerns.

The question: Is this still the case? Is there an SACD or DVD-A player that passes a pure, unadulterated "high def" audio signal?

 

[hongda]

a quick search on google with SACD transport gave this


http://www.dcsltd.co.uk/verdi.htm

http://www.accuphase.co.jp/photo/dp-100.pdf

they also offer their corresponding DAC.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

No, this is no longer the case. Pioneer, for example, are updating their DV-47A player to "DV-47Ai" status, and one of the updates is a digital interface, to connect to their multi-channel receivers, presumably. It's basically dual Firewire. This is by no means a standard yet, that has to be shaken out, but I (and everyone knows how much the companies listen to me) am leaning towards this dual Firewire thingy.

Here is Pioneer's press release on the subject.