Taking SACD to the next level?

[Cal_Cobra]

I recently picked up a cherry Oppo BDP-105D Universal Player that has a pair of ESS Sabre32 reference DACs. I have the analog stereo out going to a dedicated stereo system. I have a few SACDs with more on the way, and I have to say the Oppo play with the ESS Sabre32 DACs sounds amazing. Nice benefit of this DVD player is that it can rip SACD so I'll likely rip mine to my Synology NAS down the road.

After looking at various SACD threads here, I see some suggestions of being able to take SACD to the next level by upsampling, audio extraction, etc.

Generally what do folks do to further enhance SACD audio?

TIA!

 

[staticV3]

Generally what do folks do to further enhance SACD audio?

Convert back to PCM, then apply room correction

SACD's magic is all in the mastering, not the audio format.

By converting to PCM, you get the mastering goodness, plus the ability to get the most out of the tracks via room correction.

 

[theREALdotnet]

I’m assuming that the result of your SACD rips are DSF/DSD files? In that case, upsampling is a waste of time and space. Convert to 96/24 PCM, for maximum compatibility, space saving and no loss of quality.

 

[Chrispy]

If you have a player convert sacd to pcm before your pre-amp/amp is one way that's fairly easy. Not all players can do that, tho. Not a lot of point to it, if you apply any eq/dsp it will need to be converted. For me the only interesting part of sacd was the many recordings released in multich that way.

 

[Keith_W]

Most people who believe in SACD upsampling use HQPlayer to do it. It does real time upsampling of DSD.

However - you need to extract the DSD stream from your Oppo first, and then save it as a .DXF file. This process is not easy because of the built-in copy protection of SACD. You need an old Sony Playstation, or some models of Oppo, and special software.

I did consider ripping my SACD's. But before I did that, I bought a DSD version of my PCM rip, and I upsampled that with HQPlayer. Conversion from PCM to DSD with HQPlayer is already a CPU intensive process, and it was almost impossible to upsample a DSD file in real time with the CPU I was using about 10 years ago (Intel i7-6700K). It ground the PC to a complete standstill and music would come out in short bursts. CPU's are much faster these days, but it would still be a CPU intensive process.

 

[dlovesmusic]

Actually hqplayer 5 has significantly improved on cpu resources, my i7 6700k no oc, can upsample dsd 64 source files to dsd256 plus audiolense convolution. Takes no time to start playback with no stuttering. I am only referring to stereo not multichannel sacd tho

 

[scottm_dj]

Convert to 96/24 PCM, for maximum compatibility, space saving and no loss of quality.

Other than the fact you're defeating the purpose what makes DSD special in the first place. Coming from someone who has a system with not only no room correction but also no tone controls at all on my Audio Research preamplifier...the way the best ones are (my equally great Conrad Johnson unit had nothing either).

That's probably why I like SACD/DSD because you pretty much "get what you get" with that format. But if that "something" is well recorded and mastered in the first place....it's quite a treat for sure.

This PCM vs DSD is an argument as old as time (going on 25 years now!)...but that's my stance

 

[GXAlan]

Convert to 96/24 PCM, for maximum compatibility, space saving and no loss of quality.

Other than the fact you're destroying what makes DSD special in the first place. Coming from someone who has a system with not only no room correction but also no tone controls at all on my Audio Research preamplifier...the way the best ones are (my equally great Conrad Johnson unit had nothing either).

That's probably why I like SACD/DSD because you pretty much "get what you get" with that format. But if that "something" is well recorded and mastered in the first place....it's quite a treat for sure.

This PCM vs DSD is an argument as old as time...but that's my stance

DXD doesn’t destroy DSD… so it’s a lot less about format and more about noise shaping, dithering (and the mastering).

My bias is that Sony’s DSD to PCM algorithms are “better” since they go to 176 kHz which results in the same output that you might expect from a premium Sony SACD player.

I started with the Marantz SA-10/PM-10 and ended up with a Sony BD player to my Trinnov for SACD playback.

 

[scottm_dj]

I didn't like that word either. I changed the terminology to something a little more appropriate

 

[Descartes]

Convert back to PCM, then apply room correction

SACD's magic is all in the mastering, not the audio format.

By converting to PCM, you get the mastering goodness, plus the ability to get the most out of the tracks via room correction.

Seriously why would you spoil the DSD encoding?!

 

[theREALdotnet]

Seriously why would you spoil the DSD encoding?!

PCM encoding won't spoil it, but it may well fix it.

Ever since I introduced a DigiFace USB to my system I've enjoyed the spoils of the DigiCheck NG software, including spectrum analysers, for each track that plays. I noticed that many of my DSD tracks (notably: all Pentatone recordings!) have a nasty bump in HF noise, around 40-60kHz. This is well after the music spectrum has tapered off to zero around 25-30kHz, so it can only be noise. The on-the-fly conversion of DSD tracks, that my audio player does, leaves this noise in place. It matches the highest levels of the music spectrum at times.

Now, I'm not overly worried about my tweeters, because I think my amp's input is low-passed at 30kHz. Nevertheless, I converted the DVD tracks to PCM using a tool called DSDMaster, and this removed the HF noise in most cases, or reduced it to negligible levels. Obviously, without affecting the music spectrum. It also does a bespoke volume adjustment for DSD conversion, after analysing all tracks of an album (rather than the +6dB or whatever one-size-fits-all adjustment my audio player did).

And yes, I need PCM for downstream signal processing (Dirac), which gives orders of magnitude more benefit than any marginal advantages of DSD-direct-to-DAC playback.

Something to consider.

 

[GXAlan]

I noticed that many of my DSD tracks (notably: all Pentatone recordings!) have a nasty bump in HF noise, around 40-60kHz. This is well after the music spectrum has tapered off to zero around 25-30kHz, so it can only be noise. The on-the-fly conversion of DSD tracks, that my audio player does, leaves this noise in place. It matches the highest levels of the music spectrum at times.

Now, I'm not overly worried about my tweeters, because I think my amp's input is low-passed at 30kHz. Nevertheless, I converted the DVD tracks to PCM using a tool called DSDMaster, and this removed the HF noise in most cases, or reduced it to negligible levels. Obviously, without affecting the music spectrum. It also does a bespoke volume adjustment for DSD conversion, after analysing all tracks of an album (rather than the +6dB or whatever one-size-fits-all adjustment my audio player did).

And yes, I need PCM for downstream signal processing (Dirac), which gives orders of magnitude more benefit than any marginal advantages of DSD-direct-to-DAC playback.

Something to consider.

+1000 to all this. Sony developed DSD to archive their analog tapes, and if they were doing this in 1995, you have to imagine that the experiments date back to 1993 or 1994.

As much grief as people give DSD in 2024 (or esteem), the key innovation was that GIVEN the ADC and DAC technology at the time in the early 1990’s, DSD was a smarter move than PCM for archiving.

SACD’s implementation of DSD is a whole different step.

Fast forwarding to 2024, we have PCM DACs that deliver measured performance vastly superior to DACs 30 years ago, whereas some of the very first SACD players remain competitive today. Just look at the Marantz SA-11s2 which delivers the same performance as a Panasonic UB9000.

Because we have PCM DACs that reflect 30 years of improvement and room correction at a level that was not achievable in 1994, the benefits of DSD over PCM have vanished.

How you move DSD to PCM can vary. Ultrasonic roll off, dither, noise shaping, and even volume.

 

[dadregga]

Generally what do folks do to further enhance SACD audio?

Rip the multichannel layers and enjoy them on a surround system.

Converting to PCM or upsampling are just annoying to deal with and provide no benefit other than maybe storage space savings for the former, but storage is cheap.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Rip the multichannel layers and enjoy them on a surround system.

Yup.

Converting to PCM or upsampling are just annoying to deal with and provide no benefit other than maybe storage space savings for the former, but storage is cheap.

Converting them to PCM provides a benefit in that is permits DSP/RoomCorrection.