Sacd (1 Viewer)

[Alexander Kuch]

Ok, as far as I know in order to get SACD you need to use 5 separate analog channels, firewire, or HDMI according to a book I have read. I was at Best Buy and on one of the Sony recievers, one of the optical in's was labeled SACD. Does anyone know why this is?

I think it was the STRDE697

 

[John Garcia]

My understanding was, neither coaxial or optical have the bandwidth to carry SACD, so it has to be a sort of an error. I think they just mean SA-CD player, though it will not actually carry the hi-res audio, which seems kind of stupid and will almost certainly confuse people. It is shown next to both a coax and an optical connection. I'd bet it will have a note in the manual that states SA cannot be passed via either of those connections.

 

[Phil A]

SACD has 6 analog channels (including the sub). The Denon I-Link has just been approved for the SACD digital connection. For copy protection, they've avoided approving something like ordinary coax. The optical input on the Sony receiver says "SA-CD/CD In" and is for a CD/SACD player or changer and to pass the CD Audio layer of hybrid discs or plain CD Audio discs.

 

[Danny Tse]

Just to clarify, you can also get SACD with just stereo 2 channel since every SACD contains a dedicated stereo hi-rez mix. No downmixing for SACD.

 

[John Garcia]

To add to that: even with stereo for SACD, the signal still cannot be passed via standard digital connections.

 

[JeremyErwin]

From the manual (available from crutchfield)

The CD/SACD jacks are labeled as such because Sony wants to promote SACD. And from what I can tell, the digital jacks aren't assignable. Perhaps the designers felt that individuals would be confused when presented with both a "CD/SACD IN" jack and a "CD OPTICAL IN"

 

[John Garcia]

If not assignable, they are at least selectable for a given input because there are two inputs that have the SA-CD/CD label. I did notice they have a separate coax input for DVD, but not optical, so if you have a player with optical, you would have to use one of the other inputs?

 

[JeremyErwin]

Some receivers have a pool of digital inputs-- the various ports in the pool are assigned using a menu. My receiver, for instance, has 1 coax and 3 optical-- one optical is assigned to "dvd", while the coax is assigned to "video 2". That's what I meant by assignable. The Sony is less configurable in this regard, although you can change the input labels, and you can change whether the optical, the coax, or the analog inputs are actually active.

Click on "Download Owner's Manual" for more details

But getting back to the original topic-- Direct Stream Digital cannot be transmitted via s/pdif.

 

[John Garcia]

I know what assignable means. My receiver has 3 coax and 5 optical, each of which can be assigned to almost any source. I have "VCR" assigned to a digital connection for use with my PS2, while my SACD player uses one of the coax and the multichannel analog input and my DVD player uses stereo analog and another coax.

By selectable, I mean it's sort of a poor man's assignable in that you will likely be able to select coax, optical or analog for SA-CD/CD for that input, but for DVD, only coax or analog are available because that's what Sony decided those are the choices they would give you based on the players they produce.