SACD No Sound

Anastie

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I got two new SACD Cd's today to play through my Sony 930 and Pioneer 912 reciever. But I get no sound at all. I have looked at the settings on the amp and it appears on auto signal to pick the signal up as Analoge as oppose to digital through my coaxial. I am sure I must be doing something very simple and wrong!
Any ideas?
 
have you connected it with the 6 phono cables? you need to for sacd sound i think(5.1 sound)
 
I thought my digital coax would be enough?
 
As cuewoz suggests,you won't get a digital SACD output from your SACD player....at best you may get a 16bit CD quality output,but you certainly won't get the encrypted DSD output via the digital port,much along the lines of DVD-A copy protection.

The only system I'm aware of that's capable of dealing with raw DSD digital output from the transport and then to the processor is the somewhat expensive dCS transport/processor system at over £10k.

Other than that,you're limited to the analogue outputs.
 
no, SACD needs to have the DVD player 5.1 outputs connected to the amp
 
OK Thanks for all the input (No pun intended) Need to get seperate 5.1 cables then.
 
Originally posted by mjn
no, SACD needs to have the DVD player 5.1 outputs connected to the amp
I'm interested in the Pio 565, mainly to play SACD's via a stereo amp. Following on from the above, am I right in saying that this is not possible?
Many thanks - this may save me money, as I was going to buy one of these on impulse recently.
H
 
Originally posted by alexs2
The only system I'm aware of that's capable of dealing with raw DSD digital output from the transport and then to the processor is the somewhat expensive dCS transport/processor system at over £10k.

I'm pretty sure Pioneer's i-link can transmit raw DSD data if you turn off DSP/BM within the amp, if you use the amp's bass management then it converts it to PCM. I've just received my first SACD today and will have a play with my 757Ai/AX5i later.
 
The Pio 565 will play the the stereo layer of SACDs if you tell it to. You can then output that from the usual analogue outputs to your stereo amp.

In other words, it will work fine. All SACDs have a stereo SACD layer and some have a 5.1 layer too. You just need to set the 565 to play 2ch instead of multi.
 
Originally posted by deckard
I'm pretty sure Pioneer's i-link can transmit raw DSD data if you turn off DSP/BM within the amp, if you use the amp's bass management then it converts it to PCM. I've just received my first SACD today and will have a play with my 757Ai/AX5i later.

Pioneer's i-Link only transmits encrypted data via the i-Link as far as I am aware,and I think that until a unified standard exists for transmission of secure digital data between components,then the current situation of SACD and DVD-A often being strangled by the audio output stages of respective players will continue.
However,having read Pioneer's data on the AX5i,it certainly looks as if it does accept DSD,and I'd be very interested to hear your views on how it sounds,compared to CD.
 
Well I've just bought my first SACD (only had the AX5i/757Ai about a fortnight now) and on this limited basis I'm quite encouraged.

The disc in question is 'Comfort In Sound' by Feeder. Hardly an audiophile recording, but a real-world test of SACD IMHO. Pleasingly, the disc is a hybrid affair with stereo CD and SACD tracks plus a multichannel SACD mix too.

The area of largest improvement is in soundstaging and treble detail. The music in question frequent has distorted guitars/bass and can sound a bit 'mushy' on regular CD. However, both SACD tracks demonstrated improved placement of instruments with the multichannel mix being superior. The multichannel mix is well done incidentally, with the other channels merely adding some extra ambience and depth rather than silly instruments appearing behind you.

A word of praise for the AX5i though, it's audio scaler feature claims to improve 16bit resolution to 24bit and in fact the comparison of CD with 'hi-bit' on to stereo SACD is remarkably close.

The AX5i can be set to SACD direct which I believe takes the raw DSD stream from the player or have it turned off which utilizes the amps bass management and MCACC features. Personally I preferred direct off.

Still early days, but I think I'll be investigating SACD further when (eventually) more recordings I like appear.
 
Originally posted by alexs2
Pioneer's i-Link only transmits encrypted data via the i-Link

I believe that for i-link equipped devices to cooperate they need to be compliant with a certain copy-protection standard (can't remember the mnemonic now) and I think that's what you're touching on.

I'm fairly confident that i-link transmits raw DSD data, it definitely transmits 24bit 96kHz DVD-A although it won't transmit 192kHz without downsampling to 96kHz - something to do with the copy protection criteria again.
 
Originally posted by Stereo Steve
The Pio 565 will play the the stereo layer of SACDs if you tell it to. You can then output that from the usual analogue outputs to your stereo amp.

In other words, it will work fine. All SACDs have a stereo SACD layer and some have a 5.1 layer too. You just need to set the 565 to play 2ch instead of multi.

Bought one on the way home from work on Friday: SACD works a treat. Another player I have plays DVD-A, but I'm far more impressed with SACD, and have even ordered several more to go with this player already.

Very many thanks ofr your help.
Regards
H
 
funny that, i think DVD-A is a huge improvement over SACD. I though, well still think, that SACD offers nothing over normal 2-ch CD, other than 5.1.
 
The main advantage with SACD is that most have a CD layer as well as the 5.1 and 2 channel options. In my opinion, purchase of SACD is the less risky option due to the backwards compatibility with CD.

For example, I recently bought most of the Rolling Stones back catalogue from the USA which are hybrid discs. Switching between the layers really shows the added depth and clarity SACD brings. It just goes to show the quality of the original Reel to Reel recordings. However I must stress that other components in the system (multichannel amp and speakers, for example) must really be quite good to notice a discernable difference. Like anything in Hi-Fi, things are rarely night and day, just degrees of improvement.

Furthermore, I think the DVD-Audio developers have had terrific problems trying to make hybrid DVD/CD discs as the discs have been too thick to play in most machines which is obviously a big problem. No such problems with SACD though ..... :)
 

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