What's new

Why is the EQ disabled when playing SACD? (1 Viewer)

Jason L

Auditioning
Joined
Jun 26, 2002
Messages
6
Hi, Newbie posting for the first time with a quick question. I have the Sony NS755V DVD/SACD hooked up to a Sony DA4ES through both optical and through 5.1 channel out to the receiver (why does the SACD function doesn't work through optical????). Now when I play a SACD, I select Multi Channel on the receiver and the music comes through just fine, but I'm curious to know why the EQ on the receiver is disabled? The different sound fields are nice and all, but the sound quality is lacking due to the inability to adjust the EQ. Any thoughts on what I can do?
 

Joe Cole

Second Unit
Joined
Aug 1, 1999
Messages
282
Jason,
welcome on board HTF!
SACD currently is carried from the analog outs on your player. The optical out would only be for digital(cd). And you EQ in your receiver most likely functions in the digital domain so it will not work for SACD.
I am sure other more technical folks will jump on in.:)
 

John Royster

Screenwriter
Joined
Oct 14, 2001
Messages
1,088
I believe most 5.1 inputs on receivers go directly to the amp section with volume control.

And most importantly - you wouldn't want tone control or eq on SACD. If you did you would be converting analog to digital to analog again and running through the receivers DACs. basically destroying the benefits of SACD.
 

Jason L

Auditioning
Joined
Jun 26, 2002
Messages
6
Thanks for the replies. The NS755V came with a SACD sampler and I find that the sound quality is not as clear as a regular CD. Could it be that the sampler is of lesser quality? I hear all these rave reviews about SACD and the only benefit I can tell is the different sound fields.
 

Dan Hitchman

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 11, 1999
Messages
2,712
SACD playback quality (it uses Direct Stream Digital instead of PCM) seems to be very dependent upon the quality of the SACD player being used.

It seems to be more of the case than standard PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) playback for CDs and DVD-Audio. Probably because PCM has had, oh... 20+ years to get refined as an analog to digital and digital to analog algorithm, and DSD is still wet behind the ears (not to mention Sony and Philips, its co-creators, are keeping the technology too close to their vests so no other company can have a chance to improve upon it).

The last I've heard the now discontinued 55ES multichannel SACD player (that does not play DVDs) was the best of the middle-of-the-road units. The DSD decoding chip and the DSD digital-to-analog converters were pretty good.

The DSD chip and the DACs your player is using are not the best, sorry to say.

The 6 channel analog outputs are the only way to send DVD-Audio and SACD to a pre-amp or receiver for the moment due to copy protection paranoia (and greed) by the recording industry.

Also, if you were to use a digital EQ with SACD's currently, the processor would have to convert DSD to PCM and then you'd have no sonic benefits whatsoever of that new technology.

Dan
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top