Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

RE: backwards compatibility of SACD players?

Posted by PAR on April 28, 2020 at 02:15:50:
To generalise there is no loss, the redbook layer is treated as normal. In fact a "proper" SACD/CD player even uses a different laser for each format to ensure that they are treated optimally ( I use the term " proper" to distinguish these from some players which are really universal DVD players). Further some SACD/CD players are not able to process the SACD layer's DSD data natively and convert it to PCM first. That provides a 24/176.4 PCM output although my experience is that sample rate conversion can result in audible and unwanted artefacts.

It is also worth mentioning that the improvement in recent player's DAC sections means that the difference between SACD and CD may not be as marked as it was when SACD was introduced. Few recordings are made in native DSD so most SACDS are conversions from PCM masters. That is yet another variable.

As there are variables from machine to machine then I would suggest finding and reading reviews before committing your self to a particular model.

$4K? You can get a new Marantz KI Ruby SACD player which is where I would look first.