I am trying to play my SACD cd from a new SONY DVP-CX995V player. I have the 950 pre amp connected with an optical connection. The cd is "Audiophile Reference 4." It has two formats; the SACD and CD. It plays in the CD format ( as all the other cds do), but not in the SACD mode.There is no sound at all when the player is SACD. This is the only SACD I have, but befor I buy more I want to know if they are compatable with the 950.

If you are only using a digital connection, you will not hear the SACD playback. The player decodes the SACD internally and outputs it to the 5.1 outputs on the back of the Sony. You then need to use RCA-type connections from those into the 950's direct inputs and run SACD that way.

As Cadboy says, SACD does not output digitally. It is a restriction of the format - the only ways to get a digital signal out of an SACD player are to use IEEE 1394 (Firewire, iLink, or whatever other name might have been attached to it), HDMI v1.2, or I believe the latest incarnation of Denon's proprietary Denon Link. Firewire digital audio output is offered on very few SACD players and even fewer receivers or processors (although several processors offer Firewire inputs, most do not include support for actually using Firewire as a digital input). HDMI v1.2 was announced last fall, but I haven't seen any hardware yet that supports it. DVD-Audio suffers from similar restrictions, but unlike SACD it will output a downmixed Dolby 2.0 signal through the digital connection - SACD simply leaves the digital output dead, as you've discovered.

You can either run stereo analog outputs from the Sony to the 950 (in which case you might want to use the stereo bypass mode to keep the signal in the analog domain all the way through), or you can connect the six-channel analog output of the Sony to the 950's six-channel analog input. Or, if you don't plan to buy any more SACD's, you can simply ignore the whole mess and listen to the CD side of the disc.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm not sure my wife will stay if I install 6 more cables. It will be a tough choice.

It's worth the six cables, just don't tell her.

proper cable management nobody should know.

The six cables are hard to see (and if your cabinet is like mine, they're likely to get lost in the mess even if you do peak behind the equipment).

In the realm of cables.
Maybe when people are posting pictures of their equipment they could include a shot of the behind the scenes wire entanglements. Every time I sit down for an hour or two and organize everything with wire ties so you can actualy see the equipment, it never fails, within a couple of days something happens and I have to extracate something from the system or want to change a connection and I find my self right back where I started.
My 990 was delivered last night so I quess today will be another assault on the family of octopi in my equipment cabinet

OK, I put in the 6 cables pushed the bypass and nothing. I checked the wiring and rewired and still nothing. I even unplugged the unit for 5 min. Now what?

You need to push 6 channel bypass on the remote.

DNicely is exactly correct - the six analog cables run from the player to the six-channel analog input, which is activated with the "6CH" button on the remote. The "bypass" button will use the stereo analog input for the active input (presumably the DVD input).

On a Sony SACD player, you'll probably also have to go into the players set-up menu and confirm a few settings such as speaker size, crossover frequency, and LFE setting. If I'm remembering correctly, there's also test tones in there if you want to make sure the player is sending signal. I wouldn't calibrate to them but it tells you the player is sending something out of the analog outputs. Good luck!!

After switching to your SACD player, make sure you hit the AUD button before hitting the 6CH button. IIRC, Gonk had a nice macro programmed into his 950 remote which preserved the transport commands for his player.

It seems like such a long time ago that we all got our 950s with their various colored dots and I'm still enjoying mine.

Ahhhh, dots....

I did have a couple handy macros for turning on the 6CH input and engaging the stereo analog bypass. Because the 950's stock remote (an SL-9000) used the device buttons as input buttons, toggling to AUD (the 950 controls) and selecting "6CH" forced you to toggle back to DVD to regain control of your player, and as soon as you hit DVD the 950 switches back to the DVD input (including the digital audio input). My workaround was to create a macro (I think I parked it on M4, but I moved from the SL-9000 to an MX-500 back in 2003 so my memory is getting a bit fuzzy - I think it's still in my review somewhere ) that would simply send the 6CH command, allowing me to avoid having to go to AUD and back to DVD.

EDIT: Here are my review notes about a macro to select the 6CH input.

Thanks again. It works great. I haven't tried to use the macros yet but it sounds like a good idea.
Its really nice to get such good information. I was getting very frustrated trying to figure it out.

SACD and DVD-Audio can get pretty frustrating because of the output restrictions - glad to hear that we got you on track.

A good multi channel recording rocks! happy listening.