Spec's of DVD-A & SACD?

Hey,

So I have a 96khz/24bit DAC. Is it worth getting a DVD-Audio/SACD capable transport?

I had a very quick look on goggle but couldn't find out what sample frequency's they both work at.

If I were to get one of those cheap DVD-audio/SACD (and normaly DVD video as well, though I don't want it) players, what would be a good and cheap one to get? Are there any players compatible with DVD-Audio and SACD that only cost like £50? Will go second-hand.

 

Tenson, neither DVD-A or SACD are coded in PCM so they are not compatible with any standard PCM DAC's. Certain DVD-A discs do carry a 96/24 version of the DVD-A's MLP track which can be played back through a standard DAC.

 

You can't use a DAC with SACD or DVD-A. The main reason that both have the digital data encrypted and all but a handful of SACD and/or DVD-A transports don't send SACD or DVD-A data out of their digital output. There are expensive specialist exceptions like the dCS kit but you don't want to go there

DVD-A uses PCM encoding like regular CDs but it's 96kHz/24bit instead of 44.1kHz/16bit. In theory it would be possible to make a DVD-A transport that output the PCM digital data in the SPDIF format out of it's digital output but it's never going to happen because of copy protection.

SACD on the other hand is a totally different digital encoding system called DSD (direct stream digital) which is nothing like PCM. Google for DSD and you'll get some explanations. There are DACs that can decode DSD (the dCS kit I mentioned) but they're extremely expensive. In general though external DACs for SACD and DVD-A are going to be pretty rare and specialist products for the forseeable future.

Michael.

 

Steve - DVD-A is 96/24 PCM allthough it is encrypted and (losslessly) compressed on the disc.

Michael.

 

Ahh I see! Thanks for the explanations.

BTW, any free DVD-Audio players for the PC?

 

True Mike, what I was trying to say was that although it is PCM, it's not possible to take that particular track and run it through a standard PCM DAC as you need an MLP decoder in your DAC to do this. It may be PCM but AFAIK it's not readable like standard PCM in it's raw state.

 

afaik mlp is only used on 5.1 dvd-a t osqueeze 6 chnnels of audio onto a dvd. 2 channel is raw pcm (although you still can't get at it unless you use one of the new firewire enabled dac's).
cheers

julian

 

Or the transport and DAC have dual SPDIFs.... I don't know of such a transport though.

 

Teac P70/Dcs Verdi/La scala

 

Hey, how much do you reckon a s/h ok condition Teac VRDS-10 is worth?

 

Tenson,

Anywhere between £160-£280 depending on condition & packaging

 

Thanks ya'll

 

Tenson - you're still being given a bit of duff information there.

SACD: as Michael said

DVD-A: 24bit, 192kHz PCM. This cannot be carried by a single channel SPDIF so, as said above there are propietary solutions involving dual SPDIF or Firewire (I think that latter is the case anyway, certainly is for SACD). So your 24/96 DAC will not be able to take full DVD-A output.

HOWEVER.....

DVD-Video sound is 24/96 PCM, as is a now obsolete audio format DAD. This will be handled by your DAC.

ALSO....

I would expect multiformat players to downsample DVD-A to 24/96. Certainly my one (Pioneer 565-A, £150 from Richers) says it does...although as I have no DVD-A discs I can't confirm that. There is a proviso in the instruction manual that says that certain DVD-A discs may not provide a digital output - maybe this is a reference to the copy protection scheme.

I have my digital output connected up to my Wadia digital in. This is via a couple of freebie analogue ICs connected with a dodgy barrel connector, and it locks up fine. It also sounds fine on the two DVD-Vs I have, and playing CDs on it is fine too - if there's a difference using the external link vs the internal transport it's fairly subtle.

As to how it sounds? As I say I have no DVD-As so I can't comment on the quality. Despite the monthly email notifications of new releases there turned out to be virtually none I had any interest in. Comparing a SACD on the £250 RRP Pioneer (using its own analogue outs) vs CD on the £8K RRP Wadia though, the SACD discs give a far smoother and less grainy sound - in this respect far closer to the real thing than CDs even on the Wadia. However the Wadia gives a much more realistic ambience and "being there" feel. Which I'd choose probably depends on my mood at the time. I'm not sure about other genres but the SACD classical catalogue is growing at a reasonable rate, but is still miniscule compared to CD. So if money were completely no object I'd get a top notch multi-format source, but with the current catalogue could not justify ££££K on such, but having even a cheapo SACD player for SACDs is worth it, and I'm keen on getting some more SACD discs, but am more than happy to stick to the Wadia for the CD collection.

As I said above, Richers were doing my Pioneer 565A for £150 during the summer. They also had a fer of its predecessor at £100, but I doubt there's anything much cheaper than that. You could try looking out for a 2nd hand Pioneer-656 or 747, but I'm not sure how often they come up. Merlin has his Denon up for sale, but that's in a rather different price range.

 

Except it's not that simple... The DVD-Audio format actually has a wide range of compatible sampling frequencies and bit depths, with 24bit/192KHz being the maximum for stereo and 24bit/96KHz being maximum for 6-channel surround (using MLP lossless compression). Plenty of discs out there use other sampling rates and it can get quite confusing.

Dunc

 

If you buy any of the Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 cards, they come with DVD-A decoding capabilities and the required player. I've got an Audigy 2, but have never used the DVD-A feature personally, so can't really comment on whether it's any good or not.

 

Yeah I had an Audigy 2 but upgraded. I would think the important thing though is that the card is 24/96 compatible, which it is. Surely there is some software decoder for the DAD-A? I will have a look myself I suppose! lol cheers.