I have a Sony BD/SACD player. I feed the digital stream via HDMI cable into a recent model Onkyo receiver which specifies "DSD" decoding compatibility (in addition to Dolby, DTS, etc.) basically making the DAC external to the transport making my system a "mix-and-match" between two different manufacturers. AFAIK the bitstream signal coming out from the transport either by HDMI is not encrypted. It’s not 44.1kHz Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM) like your standard CD audio stream, but rather a Direct Stream Digital (DSD) signal sampled at 2.8MHz - entirely different method of encoding which you may be regarding as encrypted. My receiver recognizes the signal and "DSD" lights up on the display as well as on my TV screen when I’m listening to SACD discs. An SACD disc is basically a data DVD carrying DSD encoded audio data instead of PCM audio data.
Beware of SACD Transports -- they probably will not work with your favorite DAC
Hello, I just learned a painful lesson. I'm guessing that not many people will know this so I'm going to put it in here.
The audio on a SACD is encrypted.
If I were to purchase a SACD / CD player I have nothing to worry about. The Audio is un-encrypted inside the player.
However if I were to purchase a SACD / CD Transport made my brand Z, I would have to purchase a brand Z DAC???
Apparently Sony who owns the SACD format mandated that the audio on the SACD itself is encrypted and
the digital output from a SACD transport is ALSO encrypted. It looks like the actual un-encryption is done in the DAC.
There is no standard for doing the un-encryption so every manufacturer has their own proprietary way of doing this.
So I cant use a Esoteric SACD transport and an Auralic DAC which is what I tried to do?
The audio on a SACD is encrypted.
If I were to purchase a SACD / CD player I have nothing to worry about. The Audio is un-encrypted inside the player.
However if I were to purchase a SACD / CD Transport made my brand Z, I would have to purchase a brand Z DAC???
Apparently Sony who owns the SACD format mandated that the audio on the SACD itself is encrypted and
the digital output from a SACD transport is ALSO encrypted. It looks like the actual un-encryption is done in the DAC.
There is no standard for doing the un-encryption so every manufacturer has their own proprietary way of doing this.
So I cant use a Esoteric SACD transport and an Auralic DAC which is what I tried to do?