The Sony UBP X800M2 - Useless For SACD Music?

S

Severius!

New Member
I was flailing around looking for a good SACD player- actually any SACD player. It looks like only Sony's making these anymore, other than some expensive Marantz ones.

But, reading the UBP X800 manual, it says it only puts out DSD from it's HDM port. The digital coax output only passes regular 44.1 Khz PCM.

I don't see any quality DACs with HDMI inputs.If there are any, kindly let me know.

I've got a Topping DAC. It seems that most Toppings have a USB type B input. Looking around, I can't find any HDMI to USB type B cables, except for some strange ones from dodgy sources.

Who knows if that kind of cable will even work?

Should I just toss the Sony in the trash?

Any ideas?
 
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Severius! said:
I was flailing around looking for a good SACD player- actually any SACD player. It looks like only Sony's making these anymore, other than some expensive Marantz ones.

But, reading the UBP X800 manual, it says it only puts out DSD from it's HDM port. The digital coax output only passes regular 44.1 Khz PCM.

I don't see any quality DACs with HDMI inputs.If there are any, kindly let me know.

I've got a Topping DAC. It seems that most Toppings have a USB type B input. Looking around, I can't find any HDMI to USB type B cables, except for some strange ones from dodgy sources.

Who knows if that kind of cable will even work?

Should I just toss the Sony in the trash?

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
I have the aforementioned Sony and it is connected via HDMI to a 2.1 Marantz NR1200 Receiver for DSD entertainment from SACD. I also have an OPPO-205 and a Sony DVP-S9000ES which, via their internal DACs, sound on par to the Sony UBP-X800Mk2 via Marantz's DAC. The Marantz’s DAC is also indistinguishable from my Parasound P6’s DAC so overall I think the Marantz is great value at $700, just to utilize its DAC for SACD play. One more thing, virtually any of today's AVR or Pre-Pro DACs will process DSD from the Sony.
 
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I don't get what's the use for SACD with a receiver? The dac inside may be good, but even high end receivers are no match for a good integrated.
 
sonci said:
I don't get what's the use for SACD with a receiver? The dac inside may be good, but even high end receivers are no match for a good integrated.
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Yeah, they are a match but it's moot since there's only one player out there now (Sony UBP-X800Mk2) which will play 5.1 SACDs and it does not have an internal DAC. It outputs DSD or PCM via HDMI so ya gotta have an AVR, or a Pre-Pro with an HDMI input to an internal multi-channel DACfor 5.1 pleasure. My OPPO-205 has the best Sabre DACs on the planet and in contrast and comparison with the stereo DSD DAC in my Marantz NR1200 and Parasound P6, I've got to tell you the Marantz's DAC gives up nothing so playing the Sony UBP-X800Mk2 to the Marantz sounds on par to playing stereo DSD files via the OPPO or Parasound.
 
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It’s fair, in my opinion, to say that a non-digital integrated can sound better from analog sources than a modern HT receiver due to the fact that a HT receiver will digitize an analog signal for processing, eq, subwoofer mgmt, etc. unless you use a pure direct mode on an analog input. But, you lose any tweaks to bass and treble or sub controls so unless you have great speakers it could be a downgrade generally. I believe this is where the “integrated is better than receiver” argument comes from. Not really applicable with digital files. For digital there’s no real generic advantage for integrated, again, my opinion.
 
From my research, you could get a HDMI to I2S converter and input into a DAC that has I2S but you have to match the pinout, some are universal and some are not (not a huge choice right now and some are pricey). Or you could go with the Essence DAC II ($649), which does output DSD from HDMI. These might just be two channel solutions, though. Or you could do what I did and scour sources looking for an old DVD player with analog outs that has verified SACD playback. I got a Denon from 2007; it might not be true DSD (couldn't find it anywhere), but it sounds decent. I forgot, there is also the Bob converter box which I think is $1k.

If you have enough SACD to make it worth it, there is the Yamaha line CD-S1000 and up, the Denon 1700NE, and the Arcam CDS50 (PCM conversion.)
Then it goes up from there to Teac, Luxman, and Esoteric and other big $.

Edit: Topping does have a DAC with I2S input. That might be what you see on yours. D90 has it. So just a cable converter should do it. Definitely look into that.
 
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peet_pete said:
From my research, you could get a HDMI to I2S converter and input into a DAC that has I2S but you have to match the pinout, some are universal and some are not (not a huge choice right now and some are pricey). Or you could go with the Essence DAC II ($649), which does output DSD from HDMI. These might just be two channel solutions, though. Or you could do what I did and scour sources looking for an old DVD player with analog outs that has verified SACD playback. I got a Denon from 2007; it might not be true DSD (couldn't find it anywhere), but it sounds decent. I forgot, there is also the Bob converter box which I think is $1k.

If you have enough SACD to make it worth it, there is the Yamaha line CD-S1000 and up, the Denon 1700NE, and the Arcam CDS50 (PCM conversion.)
Then it goes up from there to Teac, Luxman, and Esoteric and other big $.

Edit: Topping does have a DAC with I2S input. That might be what you see on yours. D90 has it. So just a cable converter should do it. Definitely look into that.
Click to expand...
The Denafrips line has configurable I2S inputs so the Sony HDMI Audio out should work with the converter box in between.
 
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