@kraftwerkturbo
Dumb question but never really thought about it: when connecting SACD player (oppo 103 and Sony X700) with HDMI to receiver, which DAC is in use? Player or Receiver?
There are no dumb questions, just dumb answers!
First, the good news. You have bought the right version of DSOTM!
Note: This is a personal quirk, but I now use dac in lower case to mean an electronic device set and DAC to mean a standalone box containing one or more dacs.
HDMI is a digital link, so the digital to analogue converters (dacs) must be in the receiver. Strictly speaking, your Sony is not a player because it does not perform digital to analogue conversion. It has no analogue outputs and contains no dac(s). This makes it a transport only.
Players must have analogue outputs, usually in addition to digital outputs. The more channels the player supports, the more analogue connections you get. That's another advantage of HDMI - a single cable can carry up to 32-channels and there's no advantage in spending more than you have to on cables.
Many players can also be used as transports. I have a Reavon player which is almost identical to high-end Oppos. It uses the same system-on-a-chip (soc) but has two Burr-Brown dacs instead of the ESS Sabres the Oppos used.
I bought the Reavon in a hurry (had never heard of the brand) when my Marantz universal player started to fail. The Marantz did not have HDMI, so it was hooked up with lots of analogue cables to my Marantz AV8802 pre-processor. When I got the Reavon home, I just hooked it up the same way, without really thinking.
The sound quality on SACD was so obviously bad, I thought there was a fault. A bit of deep-diving showed that neither of the Burr Brown dacs could handle DSD natively. One of the dacs is a 24-bit multi-channel number, so Reavon just down-convert DSD to CD quality, though multi-channel. The quality loss was blindingly obvious, at least to me, so I emailed Reavon support who confirmed this.
The second Burr Brown dac is a 32-bit 2-channel dac with balanced outputs, presumably to give good CD playback (which it does well). But nowhere in its technical specifications does DSD get a mention. I wondered what Reavon did for 2-channel DSD playback, given it uses a 32-bit dac. Guess what - they down-convert to CD quality so that was $1000 wasted on useless on-board dacs. By the way, this player gets rave reviews for its sound quality. The reviewers (and lab technicians) are either deaf or never tried SACDs.
That's when I looked at the specifications of the AKM dacs (eight 2-channel ones) that Marantz stuffed into my pre-processor. They natively handle DSD and are superb (in my opinion). They find their way into some highly regarded DACs.
So I replaced looms of analogue wiring with a couple of HDMI cables. The sound quality is superb, in my opinion.
The moral of this story is that not all dacs are created equal. If their specification sheets don't mention DSD, it is London to a brick they cannot process DSD natively. You lose the biggest advantage of DSD, its analogue-like smoothness and simplicity.
Your Onkyo receiver specifications show it decodes Dolby Atmos, where these key words are notable absent from your Denon's specifications.
Likewise, your Oppo 103 does not explicitly mention Dolby Atmos. It may - you will find out when you stick DSOTM in, from the playback options.
Ironically, the ultra-cheap Sony transport has no problems whatsoever with Dolby Atmos, so I think I can guaranty that if you feed your Onkyo from the Sony via HDMI, you will get what you are looking for. Better still, use two HDMI cables and send audio-only down one of them.
This was meant to be a short reply, as it is 3:00 am in Eastern Australia at the moment!
