I find I'm using the laptop more and the SACD player less. J River will play DSD files and up sample to 192KHz24bit (Windows max).Īnd after all is said and done, the bottom line is not whether the original recording is analog or digital or what the sample rate/bit depth was, it's the care, knowledge and experience (and sometimes luck) that went into making the recording in the first place that makes the biggest difference in sound quality.Īlso, just as a point of reference, my Sony SCD-XA5400ES is one of the few (only?) SACD player that can play/will play the SACD/DSD layer digitally. I'm now using a NAD C390DD direct digital feedback integrated amplifier with the optional HDMI module to recieve the direct digital signal via HDMI from my laptop's RAM using J River Media Center at 192KHz, and using a Samsung Galaxy Tab2 with Splashtop app (thanks Marvel) to "remote control" the laptop/J River. If no video signal was present as in audio-only transmission you can well imagine the result.
Prevuiously HDMI was claimed to have much higher levels of jitter than USB or TOSLINK, which was true because before ARC the sync was carried by the video signal. ARC allows the sink (digital A/V reciever or amplifier) to control the source's word clock for perfect synchronization ~ no more digital jitter. And HDMI because since HDMI specification 1.3a, there is a command called Audio Rate Control. No error correction required, bit for bit perfect. By source I mean playback from something like a laptop PC, and playing the music file directly from RAM (not a spinning hard disk or SACD/CD/DVD). So far, for me, the highest quality playback I've observed is keeping everything in the digital domain, from source through amplification via HDMI. The digital resolution of DSD when converted to PCM is 176.4KHz, less than the highest res FLAC files. Or the DSD will still have to be converted to PCM or PWM somewhere in the signal chain. I personally don't know of any DSD power DAC (amplifiers) so ultimately you're going to have to go to analog in the signal chain.
I'm not sure (actually I am) that it will make any difference, especially at this point in time.
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