Question Popcorn Hour A-500 test on SACD. ISO or DSD?

Evanq

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Hi,

I have read the review for Popcorn Hour A-500 however it did not show the test on SACD.ISO or DSD .dfs files in stereo or 5.1 as mentioned in the comment.

Do anyone has the device and has tested on this? May I have the general opinion on this?

I hope to get the device by this week as the company is giving $10 OFF on purchase :D by just liking their page and sharing their post:laugh:

Thank you in advance.
 
Hi I asked one of the forum guys who is inot SACD in a big way for you:

A500 supports the following SACD ISO format......
SACD ISO Stereo Image (The Audio is in the native DSD format!)
SACD ISO Stereo Image (The Audio is in the compressed DST format!)

SACD ISO Image with Stereo and Multichannel "layer", only the Stereo
version is supported! (Multichannel version (DSD / DST) is ignored ....)

The A500 supports the following DSD formats, extracted from the SACD ISO Image directly.......

DFF (Phillips DSDIFF)...... Stereo and Multichannel (Meta Data not supported!)
DSF (Sony DSF)...... Stereo and Multichannel (Meta Data (ID3v2) fully supported!)

Extracting SACD ISO Image (DSD / DST) to DFF and DSF is happening
without any modification to the files, the process is completely
"lossless"!
The best software to do the extraction is "Sonore ISO2DSD"
Sonore APPS - ISO2DSD

The A500 decodes the DSD Stereo and Multichannel files to the following PCM signals .....
Stereo 24bit / 172.4kHz
Multichannel 24bit / 88.2kHz
(24bit / 44.1kHz Stereo and Multichannel PCM output is available for supporting older Amplifier, or direct HDMI connection to TV)
(The "New" DSD Gain settings can control the PCM sound level in the decoding stage! 0dB/+1db/+2dB/+3dB/+4dB/+5dB/+6dB.)
(The Native DSD output on the HDMI is not supported!)
 
So it converts DSD to PCM and than to aonalog? Or it converts DSD directly to analog for stereo rca out? It should do direct DSD to analog conversion as it uses DSD capable Sabre DAC.
 
I got an answer by checking ESS Sabre company specs for their Sabre DAC lineup. Unfortunatelly ES9023P DAC which is in Popcorn Hour A-500 is their basic DAC and is not capable receiving DSD data but only PCM. That means that DSD is converted to PCM on the fly and than that PCM is converted to analog by ES9023P DAC. All other their DAC's up from ES 9023P can receive and process DSD natively.
 

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