hiredfox said:

Unfortunately No!

All Sony SACD/CDP's use a universal DAC which handle DSD & LPCM inputs, so to preserve DSD it would need to be captured before the DAC in digital format. Until the XA5400ES came along with HDMI capability, no Sony player offered this facility. The XA5400ES uses a universal 'Burr-Brown' DSD 1796 DAC so it's analogue outs are converted from LPCM via DSP.

Burr-Brown was bought out by Texas Instruments in 2000 (I believe). Here is what they say about the 'DSD' 1796, certainly doesn't suggest separate processing for DSD.

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/pcm1796.html

hiredfox said:
Burr-Brown was bought out by Texas Instruments in 2000 (I believe). Here is what they say about the 'DSD' 1796, certainly doesn't suggest separate processing for DSD.

michi said:

The PCM1796 and DSD1796 do not "convert to PCM". Both chips take DSD (2.8mhz Sigma-Delta bitstream) input directly and convert it to analog. They do not change the DSD stream to PCM. (doing so would require accumulators that do not exist on the chip.)

The PCM1796/DSD1796 naming scheme is a bit misleading. Both chips take DSD input. The PCM/DSD 1796 is not an incredibly new chip either; and the XA777ES used PCM1738s, and did not convert to PCM either. TI's naming schemes have always been odd (1792 is better than 1796, but 1791 is worse than both..) but many of their PCMXXXX series DACs are seemingly identical to their DSDXXXX series DACs. (it's likely all "grading and binning.")

I don't know why people are believing that this is the case that these dacs imply that the DSD signal has to be converted to PCM. It doesn't need "separate processing" for DSD because its a sigma-delta dac natively.

If anything, DSD is closer to its native mode than PCM is.

The "DSD" chips in the SACD player do not "decode DSD"; they do "decode SACD transport stream" and "decode DST", but they send raw DSD on to the DAC.

I've been dealing with Burr-Brown parts for a very long time and you absolutely, positively, DO NOT have to send a PCM/DSD 1796 or 1792 a "pcm word". They can be fed DSD data directly.

There's a LOT of misinformation on this; You can choose what to believe, but I suggest not believing everything you read. The SCD-1 used the same DAC section as the SCD-777ES (not XA777ES), and used Sony's own "PULSE" converters. So did the SCD-C333ES.

Often, in most normal Redbook players, *PCM is converted to a sigma-delta bitstream BEFORE being shipped off to the DAC*, which then decodes the 1-bit bitstream.

So in that, PCM converting to ""DSD"" is more common than SACD conversion to PCM.

You don't have to believe me at all, especially not up against Paul Miller, and I'm not asking you to. But I am suggesting that if you do your homework, you will likely find that Mr. Miller and hiredfox are mistaken.

Take it for what it's worth. these Burr-Brown DACs are nothing to scoff at, honestly, for their performance, especially not the 1796.


... Now, on another note, if I can only find a reliable place online or local to get an XA5400ES without having to worry about shipping. (Sony store doesn't double box their stuff. They just slap a shipping label on the normal box and send it out and cross their fingers.)

hiredfox said:

I used to think that as well but apparently not. I suspect the DSD designation is used just to differentiate hybrid- DAC's from those that can only decode LPCM. I notice that Texas Instrument's PCM 1796 was the old Burr-Brown DSD 1796 DAC so make of that what you will, clearly they have no difficulty with the interchangeability of the designation.

Over lunch, I checked out all the specs and so on of my SA7-S1 and sure enough the analogue outs are supplied from a DSP which can only operate with LPCM.

No doubting the Marantz is state-of-the-art as far as sound is concerned so DSD "in" (i.e., SACD) with subsequent conversion to high frequency rate LPCM seems to be the benchmark so far for so-called SACD players.

As others have opined on here, it's the sound that matters so why get hooked up on arguments about digits? On the other hand, I for one feel cheated of the possibility of even higher fidelity from processing DSD properly but will it ever happen?

If RBCD playback was eliminated from SACD players maybe we'd stand a chance - or maybe not as designers might still resort to the Radio Shack parts bin and it is hard to imagine TI and other semi-conductor manufacturers making the investments for a lunatic fringe like us!

hookedondsd said:

If I'm not mistaken, DSP operations aren't used unless you need some sort of digital signal processing (aka time management for speaker distance settings). Also it looks like this chip has a selectable dsd mode with 4 onboard analog filter choices. The chip is fully DSD to analog capable and if it gets converted to pcm its done by the player not the chip.

Disbeliever said:

I find Sony to be a very troublesome prone Brand with the worst PR in the Business. First the power socket on the SCD-XA5400 ES is too large for power cords and is an extremely loose fit which results in the cord either falling out or the player disconnects. I have to use a piece of cardboard as a wedge to ensure a tight fit. I purchased the matching STR-DA5400ES receiver, the sound is mediochre untill you engage HATS and then the sound is very good indeed with both SACD & RB CD via HDMI. However I was unable to try out my DVD's because for some strange reason the DA5400ES cuts out and despite numerous attempts to RESET as described in the manual it simply would not come to life. THe Sony Centre admitted they had experienced the same problem and I asked for an accepted a refund which was very disappointing. I reported the problem to Sony and they just will not respond on this particular issue. They did reply re the loose socket connection on the player telling me to ensure the cord was fully pushed in and to take the player back to the retailer. I once said on another Forum that I would never buy another Sony product and I should have taken my own advice.