Upgrading digital side

Note:  be careful with SACD/CD players and transports.  SACD DSD will usually not output directly from the SACD/CD player through a standard interconnect.  Some kind of Sony copyright issue.  For SACD DSD (not CD), you are usually forced to use the DAC in the player...  For example,  I have a McIntosh SACD/CD transport and the SACD DSD is output through a special DIN cable to a McIntosh DAC while the CD PCM can be output through a standard interconnect.  I have ripped all my SACD to .dsf files and put them on a 1 TB MicroSD and play them through my streamer which connects through USB to my DAC.  Once you rip your SACD to .dsf files, you can play them through what ever DSD DAC you want. 

There is 1 device that can get PURE DSD out of a SACD player. It is the GeerFab D.BOB. I am taking this device tomorrow to my friends place to listen with his incredible Allnic DAC. Both of my Yggi+ OG and MIB cannot do DSD. I am selling both of my Yggi+'s to buy an Allnic. Nothing to do with SACD playback. 

I upgraded my digital system from an Auralic G2.1 streamer and sonnet Pasithea DAC to the Grimm MU2 and it was surprising to me the level of upgrade 

I would highly recommend it. 
 

I currently own a.... ..... Holo May KTE DAC. 

I am  looking to upgrade my entire digital side.  I have an extensive CD collection that I will continue to listen to as well as thousands of files.

 I know that the DACS I mentioned also stream, but I’m not sure that I want to be completely tied to Roon or Audirvana.  I like the idea of internal storage for my files.

Any advice on the best combination of the above (or something I haven’t looked into yet) would be greatly appreciated.

You are an excellent candidate for PGGB. Once you hear your redbook CD’s remastered to the format preferred by your Holo I guarantee you will not listen to your CD player anymore, and you will stream less. I am all in: In my system with my T+A DAC 200  DSD 512 remastered CD’s sound better than the 24/192 Qobuz streams for those albums that are available as such, and all those old wonderful CD’s that aren’t available as high res streams because they are not popular enough? Well it sounds like they all got re-done by Steven Wilson. I believe your Holo prefers PCM so that is how you would remaster them. Doesn’t hurt or cost anything to try it, just a little effort, provided you have a decent computer to run the software. Send me a PM. 

PGGB

testimonial

@yyzsantabarbara I’m also interested in the GeerFab. Please share your thoughts once you’ve listened to it in your friend’s system. 

@arafiq We were not able to get the D.BOB to work on the Allnic because I forgot the remote to my OPPO BDP-83. I have owned the D.BOB for about 5 years and it worked flawlessly with my Benchmark DAC3B using the OPPO, However, when I got the Yggi+ OG (a much better DAC) I fumbled around on the OPPO menus to try and get it to work. When I took the OPPO to my friends the settings were locked in place, and I had no way to change it.

I burrowed his RME ADI-2 DAC fs DAC and when I got home, I got PCM and DSD to work with the RME. Only difficulty was the very complicated RME DAC settings. It sounded good on SACD, but I preferred the brighter Benchmark DAC3B (now sold) that livened up the sound, 

Now comes the interesting part. I wanted to try once more with my Yggi+ OG DAC to see if it would work. The designer of the D.BOB told me it would not. I started asking ChatGPT prompts on the feasibility of using the OPPO | D.BOB | Yggi+. ChatGPT was adamant that it would work but I came to a dead-end and realized my very old $150 used OPPO is missing a second HDMI output on the OPPO that should solve the final issue. 

I then went to USAM and bought a used $240 OPPO BDP-103 which has dual HDMI outputs. I will get it this week and see if it works based on ChatGPT’s advice. If it does, I expect it to be great and a big win for me since I love the Yggi+ OG.

I did some online research on my friends DAC, and it will work with the D.BOB using SPDIF since it supports DoP up to DSD128. THE Allnic and D.BOB would likely have worked with my older OPPO bdp-83 if I got the settings on the OPPO menu correct. The BDP-103 is almost certain to work with the Allnic.

Bing Videos (Allnic DAC I wanted to work with the D.BOB)

In terms of sound the D.BOB with CD/SACD is really tied to the DAC you hook it up too. 

Just to clarify you do not need a screen to run the D.BOB. I needed it to do a 1-time setup of the OPPO settings. Another point is that ChatGPT’s advice on this issue is originating from audio knowledge bases like A’gon et al.