I have a HTPC with Intels HD Audio chip, capable of 192KHz/32-bit into eight channels. The HTPC is connected to the 990 through a coaxial S/PDIF. I'm using PowerDVD to play DVD-Audio albums on a blu-ray player. The first one I played, Queensryche, blew me away. I couldn't believe the quality of the sound. I thought to myself, 'Crap, now I have to go out and buy all my albums in DVD-Audio format'. Then I discovered the DVD-Audio can be played in DTS. Tears ran down my face as I listened to Silent Lucidity in its purity. I wasn't sad, the vocals were so clear I could actually smell Tate's fowl breath. Advanced resolution (96KHz)? Gave it a try and well, er, I'm not sure what happened. I'm not sure it's the best option. I could hear a definite improvement over DTS in the clarity of the sound, but that was the problem. It was so clear that my sub didn't reverberate as much. I still had bass, but I didn't have BASS. But it did give me a chance to hear something that I would have never noticed with my sub bouncing off of the floor: a popping sound coming from my speakers. This only occurs when listening to advanced resolution stereo (96KHz). I don't have anything that plays in advanced resolution surround sound, so I can't say anything about that. DTS and dolby digital sounded just fine but something is wrong when I hit 96KHz. Is anyone else having problems with media at 96KHz? Is this a common problem with the 990 or is something else in my system causing it? Intel?

I may be confused, but if you have your HTPC connected to the 990 via SPDIF, isn't the 990 doing all of the digital conversion ? The 990 will decode DTS and DD but I don't believe it will go beyond that.That may be why your having a problem with " advanced resolution". When playing dvd-a or SACD, I always do the digital conversion at the source and pass the signal to the 990 via the 7.1 analog inputs ( though with 2 channel recordings, any analog audio input would do ).
I hope this helps.
I do mostly classical music on SACD, but I find the high resolution audio to be far more involving than redbook CDs or DD DVDs.
That being said, when there's a DTS option available on the disc, I generally use a digital connection and do the decoding on the 990.
Enjoy!

I have not heard of the 990 having a problem with 96kHz sources as a general rule, but I've also never fed a 96khz digital signal to the 990 nor can I find explicit mention of support for it in the 990's manual.

A couple of issues: DVD-Audio cannot be output via coaxial in its true multichannel form (aside from the bandwidth requirements of MLP, the copy protection forbids it) so you are being limited to a two-channel downmix of the original lossless 5.1 signal when playing the DVD-A format (a format which, by the way, is for all intents and purposes dead and buried - speaking as someone with a section of my CD library devoted to them and to SACD). To hear DVD-Audio in its proper form, you need to be using a 5.1 analog output. Also, not all DVD-Audio discs will include a DTS track. As DTS is a lossy format, it is not as good a choice as the DVD-A track.

Gonk

With the demise of DVD-A and SACD, any thoughts on what might be around the corner for surround lovers?

Also, any idea if I would really hear a difference between my Pioneer and the OPPO 980H?

Thanks

FWIW - I feed an redbook CD signal upsampled to 96kHZ by an outboard processor and it works fine.

Also, SACD is far from dead.
A significant number of jazz & classical titles continue to be released. No pop, but I don't really care as most of it is so heavily compressed.

I agree with audionirvana - SACD isn't dead. On the other hand, releases that appeal to my interests are spotty at best (jazz and classical really are the only areas in which the SACD catalog is still growing appreciably), which is probably why my collection is still small even three and a half years after buying my first SACD player.

Surround music is most likely to continue only in the form of DVD-Video and Blu-ray discs (and HD-DVD, at least for a little bit longer). Examples such as Nine Inch Nails' Beside You In Time and the Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds discs offer an idea of what may take the place of DVD-Audio/SACD. With audio options of multichannel PCM, TrueHD (which is just a dressed-up version of DVD-A's MLP), and DTS-HD MA on Blu-ray/HD-DVD, we can still get lossless multichannel audio capable of matching DVD-A and SACD. At this point, though, I doubt we'll see a new dedicated high-resolution packaged audio format. The marketplace failure of both high-res formats and the sales slump that CD has been in for a long time now are not going to justify such a format.

As for your Pioneer 578A vs. a 980H, I can't say for certain as I've never heard the Pioneer. I will say that the 980H was at least equal to my Yamaha DVD-S1500 for DVD-Audio and actually better for SACD.

I'm nearly certain that I've fed the 990 a 24bit/96kHz signal via coax S/PDIF without a problem. I'm pretty sure I've already tested 24/192 but I can confirm that tonight if anyone cares, along with other popular sampling rates like 176.4, 96.096, 88.2, etc.

- Jason

Sorry Gonk, I misread one of your statements about SACD'S. Thanks for the info.

S/PDIF doesn't support that kind of 8 channel output, I believe that would only work on the HDMI output of the motherboard (or from the analog outputs on the motherboard).

You might also look at Dual Disc format, at least they only cost a couple dollars more than normal CD's, but contain a DVD side with surround and hi-res stereo tracks (on most). Though there aren't that many Dual Disc CD's.

There is enough bandwidth to play 96kHz through S/PDIF, just not in 5.1. The 990 is compatible with PCM 96kHz. I think there is something wrong with my 990 and of course it is out of warranty. I found out after switching between modes (DTS to advanced resolution to whatever) that they all started to sound extremely distorted. The trick was to turn off the 990 as I changed settings on my computer either on the sound card or through PowerDVD. To switch between DTS and 96/24 I have to power off the 990, set the sound card spdif output to 96khz, set the dvd quality to advanced resolution, power on the 990. And bingo, PCM 96khz plays just find on 2 channels. I do the same to go back to DTS. As for the bass, I got it back by changing the crossover setting on the 990 to 80hz. Is the 990 compatible with SACD DSD?