Post by Orpheus January 30, 2008 (71 of 94)
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FunkyMonkey said:
Sorry, I meant Sigma Delta DACs and not amps.
Anyway, when machines say that they have 192/24-bit DACs surely they cannot mean that they have Sigma Delta DACs in them? My understanding was that only specialised SACD players had these type of DACs, and most converted the DSD to PCM first, then did the DAC (still at the high resolution).
I certainly am missing somethign here....
It looks like I'll have to put things in plain language and if I make any mistakes here I'll be corrected. There are two main types of digital to analogue converters (DACs) for the sampling rate of red book compact disc (RBCD) players (16 bits/44.1kHz): resistive ladder DACs and sigma delta DACs (from the mathematical jargon, sigma delta means the sum of a lot of small things). When implemented well, resisitive ladder DACs are superior to sigma delta DACs for RBCD.
Above the sampling rate of RBCDs (eg for DVD-A, SACDs), resistive ladder DACs don't work and we can only use sigma delta DACs for these sampling rates. In order to do the signal level changes, signal delays and taking off a subwoofer for a mutlichannel setup in a universal player, typically the DSD is converted to 192kHz/24-bit PCM first and then a sigma delta DAC used to convert the PCM to analogue. I'd like to find a SACD ONLY player which did the signal level and delay changes so that it didn't have to go through the PCM stage - this is all possible to do.
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Orpheus said:
It looks like I'll have to put things in plain language and if I make any mistakes here I'll be corrected. There are two main types of digital to analogue converters (DACs) for the sampling rate of red book compact disc (RBCD) players (16 bits/44.1kHz): resistive ladder DACs and sigma delta DACs (from the mathematical jargon, sigma delta means the sum of a lot of small things). When implemented well, resisitive ladder DACs are superior to sigma delta DACs for RBCD.
Above the sampling rate of RBCDs (eg for DVD-A, SACDs), resistive ladder DACs don't work and we can only use sigma delta DACs for these sampling rates. In order to do the signal level changes, signal delays and taking off a subwoofer for a mutlichannel setup in a universal player, typically the DSD is converted to 192kHz/24-bit PCM first and then a sigma delta DAC used to convert the PCM to analogue. I'd like to find a SACD ONLY player which did the signal level and delay changes so that it didn't have to go through the PCM stage - this is all possible to do.
I understnad that, thanks.
What I didn't realise was that all DACs that specify 192kHz/24-but DACs on their spec sheet used Sigma Delta circuitry.
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Orpheus said:
I'd like to find a SACD ONLY player which did the signal level and delay changes so that it didn't have to go through the PCM stage - this is all possible to do.
Are there any such SACD players around? If so, which? And (I hope this is not the red rag before the bull question) would it make any noticeable difference?
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Osbert Parsley said:
Are there any such SACD players around? If so, which? And (I hope this is not the red rag before the bull question) would it make any noticeable difference?
My Sony XA SCD 9000 ES has a DSD direct mode which bypasses channel and bass managment. Those signals are fed directly from the dsd to analog converters to my Bel Canto Pre-6 multi-channel analog preamp.
The all analog Pre-6 has independent level adjustment for all channels. I measured to obtain a 9 ft distance from the listening chair to all speakers and the treble ribbons of the Apogees are nine feet apart, forming an equilateral triangle with the listening chair. The Magneplanar ribbon tweeters are centered to the listening position yielding the 30 degree angle recommended for the front 3 channels.
Observations by myself and a friend when we tried it were:
Increased clarity, which manifested itself mainly as better separation of individual instruments.
Increased upper midrange and treble sweetness.
These characteristics were not subtle.
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Post by Orpheus February 1, 2008 (75 of 94)
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Osbert Parsley said:
Are there any such SACD players around? If so, which? And (I hope this is not the red rag before the bull question) would it make any noticeable difference?
There are no such SACD players that I know of because most SACD players are universal players. I possibly recall a discussion on this forum in the last few months at least about the few SACD players which do direct DSD to analog conversion without going through the PCM stage (eg the early Sony SACD players) and it would take some searching to find this again.
"Osbert Parsley", if you send me an e-mail (see my profile) I could try to help you in hardware selection in Sydney, Australia.
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Post by Orpheus February 1, 2008 (76 of 94)
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Windsurfer said:
My Sony XA SCD 9000 ES has a DSD direct mode which bypasses channel and bass managment. Those signals are fed directly from the dsd to analog converters to my Bel Canto Pre-6 multi-channel analog preamp.
The all analog Pre-6 has independent level adjustment for all channels. I measured to obtain a 9 ft distance from the listening chair to all speakers and the treble ribbons of the Apogees are nine feet apart, forming an equilateral triangle with the listening chair. The Magneplanar ribbon tweeters are centered to the listening position yielding the 30 degree angle recommended for the front 3 channels.
Observations by myself and a friend when we tried it were:
Increased clarity, which manifested itself mainly as better separation of individual instruments.
Increased upper midrange and treble sweetness.
These characteristics were not subtle.
I'm not surprised at your results. I used to listen in stereo in a large room and I wanted to put everything at the maximum distance apart in that room to enjoy the widest stereo sound field. Multichannel listening somewhat limits the choice of positioning things in a room but as I do a lot of stereo listening to RBCDs I'd prefer that the surround channels not limit too much the width of the stereo sound field. I'm told by a competent technician that good digital speaker crossover units now exist which will do speaker level and delay adjustments and this could possibly be a very useful thing to use with a direct DSD to analog SACD player.
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Post by trntbl February 2, 2008 (77 of 94)
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Windsurfer said:
My Sony XA SCD 9000 ES has a DSD direct mode which bypasses channel and bass managment. Those signals are fed directly from the dsd to analog converters to my Bel Canto Pre-6 multi-channel analog preamp.
The all analog Pre-6 has independent level adjustment for all channels. I measured to obtain a 9 ft distance from the listening chair to all speakers and the treble ribbons of the Apogees are nine feet apart, forming an equilateral triangle with the listening chair. The Magneplanar ribbon tweeters are centered to the listening position yielding the 30 degree angle recommended for the front 3 channels.
Observations by myself and a friend when we tried it were:
Increased clarity, which manifested itself mainly as better separation of individual instruments.
Increased upper midrange and treble sweetness.
These characteristics were not subtle.
I think my Sony SCD-XA3000ES does DSD-to-analog also (if processing is bypassed).
Here is an review of quite affordable Sony SCD-XA1200ES: http://www.stereoplay.de/sixcms/media.php/188/stp0307SonyKombi.pdf
There is a picture of DSD-board that supposedly does the speaker management. (My german is worse than my english, so I might be wrong).
kristian
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trntbl said:
I think my Sony SCD-XA3000ES does DSD-to-analog also (if processing is bypassed).
kristian
Is the 1200 stereo only or multichannel? What of the 3000 ? which is newer and what are the prices?
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Post by trntbl February 2, 2008 (79 of 94)
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Windsurfer said:
Is the 1200 stereo only or multichannel? What of the 3000 ? which is newer and what are the prices?
SCD-XA1200ES is Sony´s latest SACD player, SCD-XA3000ES was it´s predecessor. The SCD-XA9000ES stays in production as Sonys flagship. All of them are multichannel players. The XA3000 was 1300 eur 4 years ago, XA1200 is cheaper, currently about 650 eur in Germany.
kristian
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Post by trntbl February 5, 2008 (80 of 94)
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I cracked my Sony open to see what it has been eaten. There seems to be some DSD chip by Sony. Don´t know if it does the PCM processing.
kristian
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