Portable SACD Player

[MonkeyMan]

Anyone know if a portable SACD is on the horizon? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Dig THIS

portable SACD -> Ted's Earcandy 1FT mini-to-mini cable -> Total Airhead -> ER4-S

 

[bangraman]

There are some higher-bitrates-than-CD players on the horizon but at prototype stages, with no definite plans for production. Sony may also have plans for very high-quality audio on the move. The problem is the difference in sound between a 2-channel SACD and a CD based on what most people will buy in tems of headgear, including the Etys (which are actually quite poor SACD performers in my opinion).

 

[lan]

That would be nice to see but they don't even get maximum performance out of regular CD portables. :/

 

[davei]

What's the point? You can't even buy a good sounding current production PCDP anymore. There's hardly any way they could make money off it. As a tweako audiophile I'd love to have one in my hot little hands, but Ian's point is well taken, as is the fact that the future of portable players is in MP3, Atrac, flash/HD based players, etc.

 

[Oddball]

There's a possibility that future portable DVD player would support SACD. That's the closest I can think of. A purely SACD portable is highly unlikely but would be pretty cool. Transportable? Of course. Portable? No.

 

[redshifter]

my toshiba dvd and dvd audio player is portable--fits right in a small bag with a meta42 amp, monster camlink cable and room for grado sr125. it's great for trail walking, and the redbook playback is fantastic too.

 

[rsaavedra]

Nice would be to have what Stereophile suggested in their review of the Ipod. DSD DACs on devices like the Ipods, and support the storage of the DSD data directly in those, no mechanical transport needed in portable audio players.

Edit:http://www.stereophile.com/budgetcom...34/index2.html

 

[DEMIW]

Quote:

Originally posted by Oddball There's a possibility that future portable DVD player would support SACD. That's the closest I can think of. A purely SACD portable is highly unlikely but would be pretty cool. Transportable? Of course. Portable? No.

I agree with Oddball. That´s would be pretty cool but unlikely. The best bet would be a company like Headroom contructing an "statement player". Actually the Tyll has mentioned it has a new project, We shall wait !

 

[Alex Altorfer]

DEMIW,

Quote:

Originally posted by DEMIW I agree with Oddball. That´s would be pretty cool but unlikely. The best bet would be a company like Headroom contructing an "statement player". Actually the Tyll has mentioned it has a new project, We shall wait !

Oi! Benvindo ao Head-Fi! coitada da sua carteira!*

Abra?o,
Alex

*Welcome to Head-Fi, sorry about your wallet!

 

[Ari]

MonkeyMan

Good point. I'm more a portable than a desktop man...


Hey DEMIW !!

Welcome and sorry for your next 50 years walets...

*Bem vindo cara !!

Ari

Transl. : * Welcome man !!

 

[aos]

Quote:

DSD DACs on devices like the Ipods, and support the storage of the DSD data directly in those, no mechanical transport needed in portable audio players.

That's pretty bloody unlikely! Sony and the rest are doing the best they can to prevent anyone from having the actual high resolution data other than on the printed disc. You don't even have a computer-based players for either dvd-a or sacd yet (not counting the special deal that Creative has for dvd-a). Unless some massive DRM upgrade happens and all hard drives support it and there's enough broandband to download a couple of gig of encrypted data from the online store (because no way in hell will they allow an extraction tool even if it has DRM) you won't see this on hard disk based devices. It's not a technical issue at all but a political one.

That said, very few portables even realize the possibilities of the redbook sound quality.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally posted by aos That's pretty bloody unlikely!

Yes I know, I just said it would be nice, notice I didn't make any likelihood assessment. Politics and fears of copyright violations will keep that from happening any time soon indeed.

Speaking about likelihoods, I do think hard-drive based portables with firewire digital outs might be availble soon, wouldn't have DSD DACs inside, but would be able to send the encrypted DSD stream through firewire to external firewire-enabled receivers, which would do the decryption and decoding.

(Edit: though that wouldn't make it a portable SACD player, unless that receiver is also portable of course)

Certainly the reasons are political and not technical. Even though true it would be hard to make a portable, hard-drive based SACD player with DSD DACs and everything do justice to the capabilities of the format.