Quote Originally Posted by Dalek Supreme D L View Post
Not tried this yet but the Sony HAPZ1 had a recent software/operational tweak which makes the USB a digital out now, and as the HAP plays DSD and can convert files to DSD (also comes with DSD sample tracks) I plan on trying it with a DAC I have that is DSD compatible. If this works then that is a step forward.

Esoteric equipment has two DSD output options Firewire and twin XLR outputs, both sound excellent.
Interesting, Neil. It was always my understanding that just about all SACD transports to date only output PCM over SPDIF, via a conversion process, most can't output native DSD, so it's pretty cool that some are doing that. It would be pretty cool to be able to make a direct comparison.

My DAC doesn't read native DSD but my newly-acquired Mutec MC3+USB reclocking device does, though it performs a conversion to PCM in passing the signal through, that's supposed to be done in a reasonably sophisticated way but is a conversion nonetheless. I assume the DSD input is only over USB but I haven't checked. Conversion is frought with difficulty though because the whole stream is handled entirely differently, DSD is only 1 bit but a massively higher sample rate.

Very few SACD recordings were done natively in 1bit DSD anyway, most are conversions of 24/96 or 24/192 in the studio. So they get quantized on the way to DSD format, and conversion to PCM quantizes them on the way out - not ideal and there are strong arugments on the high-res side for keeping things PCM.

Some interesting info out there on the relationships between DSD and PCM and it seems to me that which format is 'better' is not always clear cut. Here's one example which though it's by a DAC vendor explains things rather well. http://www.mojo-audio.com/blog/dsd-v...myth-vs-truth/