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In Reply to: RE: Channel Classics getting out of SACD mostly posted by stvnharr on April 28, 2016 at 16:16:48
An OEM SACD mechanism is a mechanism dedicated to the replay of CD and SACD optical discs which is supplied by an Original Equipment Manufacturer to a manufacturer of finished players. It consists the mechanical drive,optics and some digital electronics, the latter normally concerned with control of the mechanism, reading TOC and decoding SACD. The DSD information contained on an SACD is encrypted which requires decoding.
One of the OEM SACD mechanism suppliers (in fact the last that remained in the market AFAIK) Teac/Esoteric no longer supplies other manufacturers. It now restricts its mechanisms to its own products.
The Sony decoding chip was not licensed to Mytek. Mytek does not make a chip that performs the same task. Mytek do make a chip that will decode SACD but not for SACD mechanisms, only for DVD drives. The latter fits in well with your final paragraph which I suspect it likely to be more or less correct.
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Here is a link to a diyaudio thread. Read Post #1 as it explains the situation best. It's not just sacd mechs that are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/279390-quality-cd-mechanisms-long-gone-let-us-build-one-ourselves.html
The linked thread that you refer to is not about SACD mechanisms but CD mechanisms.
Quality cd mechs are gone now. The thread is long and there is some industry participation. It seemed to me from the reading that most makers now use CD-ROM drives as they are still very available.
The specialty sacd market is very small and as you mention in another post the makers that are still making players may be making their own mechs and not making them available to others. However, Oppo is getting theirs from somewhere.
The situation with Oppo is pretty straightforward. They don't use a dedicated SACD mechanism. As their machines are multi-media players they must use a DVD type of mechanism which also enables laser light of two wavelengths to cater for CD/DVD or Bluray/SACD replay. This would enable them to use e.g. a Mediatek multi purpose chip or similar. The need for a shorter laser wavelength than required for CD in order to replay SACD means that standard CD-ROM drives are not usable for SACD replay.
Incidentally have checked on the Sony SCD-XE800 SACD player. It seems to be (or have been) a Japan and Europe only item. Although it appears in the catalogues of Sony's European divisions I am unable to find a new one for sale anywhere. It was introduced in 2010/2011 and 6 years or so is an unfeasibly long time for any product to remain in a major Japanese manufacturer's listing. I suspect that it remains effectively as vaporware only. Sony did the same thing with the XA5400ES which remained in the UK catalogue for at least two years without any pieces actually being available. For products of big Japanese corporations supply can be exhausted before the marketing cycle has concluded. It is very rare for further batches to be made as their production capacity is already occupied with newer lines.
Dedicated sacd mechs are definitely not plentiful now, and likely never were. There never was a plethora of audio only sacd players, even in the beginning. Dedicated sacd mechs has a nice sound to it, but does it really matter? Marantz now has their SACDM-1 and SACDM-2 mechs and Esoteric has their VRDS mechs and that's about it.
The Ayre C5 used a dvd mech and nobody complained about the player quality. But then again the Ayre has reached the end of it's production cycle and is no longer made.
I just happened to look up the Sony UK site and was surprised to see that XE800 player. And like you mention, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is available.
The one new player that did come out in 2015 was the Marantz SA14S1, though it was in limited distribution.
So, your message is that Teac/Esoteric is no longer supplying anyone else. That is not the same as there are no more OEM sacd mechanisms. I have no idea how many companies used Teac mechanisms. The Esoteric division is a different story as the VRDS mechanisms are quite expensive and only a few companies can afford to buy them.
The SH forum thread mentioned a Sony chip that had been licensed to MediaTek, not Mytek the dac maker.
I meant to type Mediatek not Mytek. No Sony Chip has been licensed to Mediatek as I explained. Please see link to Mediatek. Please also see one of my earlier posts in this thread which has a link to details of the Sony chip that is no more. There is no Mediatek equivalent.I said that TEAC/Esoteric were the last supplier of OEM SACD mechanisms. if you know of another then please advise.
Edits: 04/29/16
NT
Edits: 04/29/16
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