Dumb Question

Thanks, I figured I couldn't get there from here, but it's nice to know for sure!

Definitely not SACD--that requires a separate laser, and there is currently no universally accepted DAC interface to get a digital signal into the DAC. With DVD-A, I'm not sure if your Pioneer can read and, by itself, decode the disc, but my understanding, at least at this point, is that the software itself will not allow a 24/96 digital signal to be output from its digital output (one of my pet peeves with the medium), so an external DAC would not get a true 24/96 signal.

SACD is a completely different format. DVD Audio is part of the same format specification as DVD Video, but a different application requiring different software to read. So, the short answer to your question is, no, it won't work to hook up an external DAC and take a digital output from a current DVD player to be able to play SACD and DVD-A. A current DVD-V player can't read either format and no player currently outputs a digital stream containing one of the new formats. For this latter reason, there are no external DACs that will accept and decode these new formats. -Kirk