[xenithon]

Hi all. As you may know, SACD players do not have digital out (well, very few do and they are extremely costly). Has anyone used the analog output of their SACD player to feed an ADC? Have you find this to improve/degrade the sound?

For example, the following hypothetical situation
- SACD player analog out to ADC analog in (e.g., Behringer SRC2496)
- SRC2496 would take that analog signal and convert to digital, remove any jitter, do any other "cleanup" like reclock the digital signal, and optionally resample to the specified sampling rate
- digital signal would be sent to external DAC (e.g., via S/PDIF coax or AES/EBU XLR)
- DAC would work its little magic to convert to analog and send this via it's analog outs

I appreciate there is quite a bit of converting going on, but might this work? I am also thinking about situations where you cannot playback SACDs, e.g. if you have a combined DAC/amp which only has digital input - you cannot connect analog from SACD to DAC/amp but you could connect it to the ADC, then via digital to the DAC/amp.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
X

 

[Uncle Erik]

Most SACD players will give you digital out, but only for Red Book. They won't give you Scarlet Book out. I believe your SA7001 has both coax and optical out, as well. For SACDs, the deck will downconvert to Red Book.

You could send the signal through a few conversions, but why? SACD is terrific straight out of a deck and yours is a very good one. I think it is the non-US version of the SA8001, which I have. I did try sending the Red Book to a PreSonus Central Station. It did sound good, but not appreciably better than Marantz' onboard DACs.

 

[xenithon]

Hi there,

Yes, the SA7001 does indeed have digital out, though only for the Redbook layer. The reason I am looking into this is since I have the Apogee Mini-Dac powering balanced HD650's directly through the XLR out (which sounds superb).

Problem is I cannot listen to the HD650's playing SACD, as there is no way to get the SACD data to the Apogee. With something like the SRC2496, the analog output of the SACD layer could go into the digital domain, transmitted to the Mini-Dac, then played back via the XLR outputs.

 

[ethebull]

Do you own the Behringer SRC2496 yet? If you're thinking of buying one for SACD play back as outlined in your post, I wouldn't bother. Given that you use a DAC as an amp and the DAC can't process SACD data (nor can your SACD player provide it), you will not get any benifit from SACD recordings. If you own some, just select the redbook layer and listen through your system like you would any regular CD.

You say "- SRC2496 would take that analog signal and convert to digital, remove any jitter, do any other "cleanup" like reclock the digital signal, and optionally resample to the specified sampling rate" That is not true. Once the Marantz outputs in analog, the ADC can only do harm. There is no benifit like reclocking and jitter reduction in this instance. That only applies when it's fed a digital signal.

 

[xenithon]

Quote:

That only applies when it's fed a digital signal.

Hmmm....wouldn't the Behringer, being an ADC, convert the analog input into a digital signal and then apply any effects (such as upsampling, jitter removal) etc?

 

[ethebull]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xenithon /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hmmm....wouldn't the Behringer, being an ADC, convert the analog input into a digital signal and then apply any effects (such as upsampling, jitter removal) etc?

Jitter in CD playback from Wikipedia:

In the context of digital audio extraction from Compact Discs, seek jitter causes extracted audio samples to be doubled-up or skipped entirely if the Compact Disc drive re-seeks. The problem occurs during seeking because the Red Book (audio CD standard) doesn't require block-accurate addressing. As a result, the extraction process may restart a few samples early or late, resulting in doubled or omitted samples. These glitches often sound like tiny repeating clicks during playback. An approach that has produced good results is to do jitter correction in software involves performing overlapping reads, and then sliding the data around to find overlaps at the edges. Most extraction programs will perform seek jitter correction.

Jitter errors, once converted to analog, become part of the signal, indistinguishable from the music in the eyes of the Behringer when it does it's A to D process.

 

[xenithon]

Points duly taken.

I guess the question is, once it is in analog form, would it be doing a lot of harm going to digital (Behringer) then to analog again (Apogee)? In essence, it is a question of Redbook layer playback vs. SACD layer playback via the ADC/DAC route.

 

[ethebull]

You got my opinion in my first post

It will likely sound a bit different, possibly you will like it better, it's just as likely to sound worse. Either way, you won't be hearing SACD through your headphones until the Mini-Dac is out of the loop. Do you get to enjoy SACD through speakers, or are you just a HP guy?

 

[xenithon]

Well, I plan to get some speakers in the future which I will use for SACD. For now though, I'm sticking to HP's. It's also an interesting situation because I am using the DAC straight to cans (via XLR); and not using a separate amp....if I were using a separate amp it would have analog input. No worries though....Marantz makes a fine darn transport for now and I will utilize SACD playback when I get the chance!

 

[MrLA]

why bother going to adc. the marantz cdp has hp out already and you can use it, it's pretty good too. only better solution is to get better hp amp.

 

[emmodad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xenithon /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi all. As you may know, SACD players do not have digital out (well, very few do and they are extremely costly). [ snip ] - digital signal would be sent to external DAC (e.g., via S/PDIF coax or AES/EBU XLR)

OPPO players can output native DSD over HDMI (but you need downstream equip w HDMI input or ability to strip DSD stream; then DSD decode: all of which are costly options unless you just happen to have spare Meitner, Mytek, dcs or Grimm DSD DACs laying around

, as well as other necessary hardware...)

However, OPPO (ie 980-H) also output on HDMI the following: DSD converted to PCM @ 24/88.2; DVD-A up to 24/192; and (YAY!) hardware-decoded HDCD @20/44.1

A perfectly functional system solution is: Oppo > HDMI breakout (Atlona, Gefen) > SPDIF coax or TOS > [ DAC, computer audio interface, etc. ]

if all you want is up to 24/96, Gefen has some products which work w TOS. For 24/192 capability, solution is Atlona using coax. There may be other switcher / converter / etc boxes introduced at recent CES....

Realize that an HDMI breakout (which converts HDMI > DVI and also provides dig audio output stream on SPDIF or TOS) must be connected to a downstream device which is powered on and is HDCP-compliant (ie sends back the appropriate handshake). This can be an HDTV with HDCP-compliant HDMI or DVI input, or HDfury attached to a projector or TV or computer monitor....

Similar solution works with PS3 HDMI output (which provides DSD converted to PCM @ 24/176.4).

enjoy!

 

[xenithon]

Valid points, but a) the HP's are Sennheiser HD650s which I doubt the Marantz would drive; and b) the HD650's have a Balanced SAA Equinox cable. I do not have a balanced to SE adaptor unfortunately. I can try with the stock cable and see how the Marantz drives the Senn's though

 

[rederanged]

I used to have an Outlaw 970 pre-pro that had the option of doing ADC->DAC on the SACD mutichannel analog inputs for custom bass management, versus using a fixed 80 Hz analog crossover. When I set the digital crossover at 80 Hz to do an apples to apples comparison with the analog, the difference was easily audible. The digitally bass managed signal sounded thinner.

The Behringer ADC is probably better than my Outlaw's was, but I doubt that it would be transparent.

 

[grawk]

I take the output of my sacd player into my duet with some success. I think that as long as you're just listening, you'll be fine iwth just about any ADC, and it'll scale at least as much as dacs do. You could also get an apogee minime and share the connection to your computer between the two boxes (get a minime with firewire, or with no connection, and you could use either the firewire or usb for both)

 

[xenithon]

Thanks for the info guys. I was considering the Mini-Me grawk, but I think it would be overkill, especially at the price (nearly $1000).

I can get the SRC2496 for roughly a tenth of that

. The other additional benefit of the SRC2496 is that it has multiple digital inputs (Mini-me has none), so I can connect a NOS CD player/transport to it, it will upsample and do jitter removal, and pass it on to the Mini-Dac.

By the way grawk.....just managed to test the Mini-Dac fed via optical and it works at 24/96!