Hi-Res Audio Equipment -- Does Each Component Need to Support It?

[The_Fourth_Doctor]

Hi all,

I'm on the verge of acquiring a new blu-ray player, the Sony X800M2. It can handle the major hi-res file formats (SACD and DVD-Audio, too). It's got HDMI outs, as well as coax digital and bluetooth.

In order to play hi-res files, do I need a receiver that can also process these formats, or can the player just pass on the processed data for any receiver with an HDMI connection to play? Many receivers on the market now have the ability to process, but some do not, including the receiver I currently own. If I do need a receiver that can process these formats, then what's the point of having the player do it if the receiver's just going to have to do the work anyway? And the Sony player doesn't have any analog outs, so it's not like I could hook it up to my receiver's multi-channel analog inputs.

Thanks!

 

[voodooless]

Your ears don’t support high-res audio either

Your Sony can decode Dolby True HD and DTS as well as decode most high res audio only formats. These can get decoded to pcm and transported to your receiver via HDMI. If you want to support other formats, your receiver should take care of them. If not find one that can. Almost any modern receiver can do it nowadays.

 

[The_Fourth_Doctor]

Thanks! I'm still not 100% clear on what's needed to make the magic happen. So I can provide a specific scenario. Say I've just bought a high-res music file from HD Tracks. The X800M2 is capable of processing that file. Then the question becomes, how do I listen to it? The Sony STR-DN1080 says it "supports a wide variety of High-Resolution Audio formats," and lists examples of WAV/AIFF/FLAC/ALAC up to 192 kHz/24 bit. The step down receiver from Sony, the STR-DH790, just says it's "High-Resolution Audio compatible." It doesn't talk about being able to process any files or formats. So would it be able to handle everything the X800M2 throws at it without loss of resolution?

 

[voodooless]

Sony does not really go into much detail regarding the actual capabilities of the receivers. Especially the STD-DH790 is very vague. It can consume high-res PCM and DSD, but they don't state what it actually does with them. The manual says however that it might convert the incoming sample rate to something else internally.. Actually, just about all AV receivers do this. Almost all AV receivers do active DSP processing at 48 Khz (some higher-end models might do more), so also things like room correction. You will have to switch to pure direct (or equivalent) to disable all of that.

The DN1080 has a bit more information. It seems to actually be able to natively play DSD and have some upsampling voodoo, which leads me to think that it would also be able to play >48 Khz sampling natively. But probably only in pure direct mode.

 

[The_Fourth_Doctor]

Could it be a PCM vs Bitstream issue? That is, is the player does the decoding, I can send it via PCM to the receiver and it will handle it?

 

[voodooless]

Could it be a PCM vs Bitstream issue? That is, is the player does the decoding, I can send it via PCM to the receiver and it will handle it?

That is not the point. The point is what the receiver does with it. It might then just always downsample everything to 48Khz. So even if you input 192Khz audio, it would not actually send it to the DAC at that rate.

Now that does not mean it is really a major issue. You can't hear past 20Khz anyway It might just degrade the feeling of playing high-res audio.