News help choosing a SACD Player / transport

I use a McIntosh MCT500 transport with a McIntosh D150 DAC.  These models have been around at least 10 years or so.  Used,  they might get close to your budget.  This is what I do.  Proprietary DIN cable between the MCT500 and the D150 to play SACD and CD.  COAX cable between the MCT500 and D150 to play higher res PCM from the MCT500 USB stick slot where I have all my ripped CDs, higher res PCM, and ripped SACDs.  Note: You have to switch inputs on the D150 when going from DSF or SACD to higher res PCM coming from the COAX. cable.  Recently I added a  Volumio RIVO+ streamer to stream Qobuz and hold all my ripped .wav CDs, ripped .dsf SACDs, & higher res PCM connected by USB cable to the D150 DAC along with a 13.5" OLED screen to show the Album art.   I use a 1 TB MicroSd card to hold all my music into the RIVO+ which is very fast.  USB sticks are also supported, but, microSD has the cleanest sonic path.  I stream Qobuz through the RIVO+ and switch to my ripped files at will from my Volumio iphone app.  I rarely every use the MCT500 transport anymore.  I used to use it for SACD, CD and USB stick drive, and the user interface on the small screen is decent, but, the Volumio user interface integrated with streaming is at another level.  Regarding sound, I do not think I can tell the difference between SACD and SACD ripped dsf files.  I tried a couple of times, and I am not sure...  I think I like the RIVO+ playing .wav and .dsf files through the USB connection on the D150 dac better than the USB stick input on the MCT500 transport, but, I am not sure.... Likewise on CDs and ripped CD .wav files.  Regarding SACD, CDs, I would be hard pressed to say any ripped files sound as good as the hard copies, but, I am also not convinced I could pick out the difference in a blind test.  I do believe there is a good logic to be able to play your hard disks, but, if I had to choose between one or the other, I would choose the Rivo+ with the ripped files.  I hope this answer helps you.  

I thought that the PS Audio Transport would pass on the DSD signal to any DAC that has an I2S input.  That’s why I toyed with getting one a while back.  

    OP:  To clarify,  better DSD sound from the Esoteric unit, bypassing the Lampy?  

    Assume yes...DSD over USB is DoP (DSD over PCM);  that is DSD 1 bit files embedded in PCM protocols (files).  Using asynchronous USB allows room for clock errors (jitter) to potentially degrade the signal (also conversions back and forth between Raw DSD and PCM). The Esoteric has beaucoup/very good clocking protocols to filter any jitter.

   PCM and DSD converters are completely different animals, though Esoteric controls both thru the FPGM chip.  The Lampy has to convert DSD to PCM to feed the ladder DAC, it has no RAW DSD DAC.

  There is so much quality of recording/mixing differences between CD and especially DSD productions, either RedBook CD or native DSD or DoP can sound better.   Your ears are the final judges!

  The "breakout boxes" you mention extract I2s (music only) signals from HDMI connectors/cables...pin configurations between Transport and DAC must match.  I have a cheap $60 one between an OPPO 85 and a Pontus II (12th) DAC.  This may violate SACD rules but I bought and own the Discs and am not duplicating or making $$s...so fair? 

BTW, Wiki has a very extensive and informative writeup on DSD use.

@corente 

It is a Golden Atlantic

I could not find an exact matching model on Lampizator's website - I am trying to understand the architecture of Lampizator's dac(s).  Note that I am using dac lower case for the actual converter and DAC uppercase for the box that contains the dac(s), plus other functionality like filters and volume control.

This is to try to understand whether there is a dac that natively processes DSD bitstreams, or whether DSD is mathematically converted to PCM.  If so, what PCM bit-depth and sampling rate?

Note that DSD can be exactly converted to PCM, but the resulting PCM cannot be exactly converted back to the original DSD based on the PCM data alone.  In other words, you lose detail.  Is this audible?

For me, it is clearly audible, and here's my proof.  For a couple of decades, I have listened to SACDs played through very accurate Quad electrostatic speakers.  When my Marantz universal disc player became flaky, I replaced it with a Reavon universal disk player.  Initially I used both player's analogue outputs.  The Reavon is very similar to the now-discontinued Oppos, but uses Burr-Brown dacs instead of Sabre ESS dacs.

Every type of silver disk sounded superb, except for SACD DSD layers. I looked up the specification sheets on the Burr-Brown dacs - one is a two-channel dac which can handle 32-bit PCM, and the other is a multi-channel dac that can only handle 24-bit PCM. 

There was no mention of either dac handling native DSD!  I wrote to Reavon who confirmed that internally multi-channel DSD is down-converted to Redbook CD quality, ie 16-bits at 44,100 samples per second, though still multi-channel.

Then I wondered what they did with 2-channel DSD where they could use a 32-bit dac.  The answer was the same - DSD is internally down-converted to CD quality.

I knew there was something wrong within a minute or so of listening!  The 'air' around quiet piano notes was missing.

A soon as I reconfigured the Reavon to output DSD over HDMI, I got back the 'air' by using a Marantz pre which has an array of AKM dacs.  These do natively handle DSD.  Used as a transport, the Reavon is excellent but I wasted my money on its dacs!

I do not understand why the North American market makes such a dog's breakfast of SACD playback, and especially why the purpose-built HDMI is often missing from transports and DACs designed for North America.

In my experience, I have had no compatibility issues whatsoever sending SACD formats from universal transports over HDMI, whether the Redbook CD layer, 2-channel native DSD or multi-channel native DSD.  That includes from Sony transports a tenth the price of the Reavon.

To me, trying to squeeze DSD over other connection types designed for low bit rate 2-channel is performing an entirely unnatural act.