Thanks Gonk, appreciate the time. Bob

No problem. Glad to help.

Not exactly. The older SACD capable PS3s briefly had a firmware version (I think it was 2.0) that would transcode the multichannel DSD layer to lossy DD or DTS 5.1 (forgot which) and output it over optical. It has never been able to put hirez from an SACD out over optical at all, stereo or otherwise (I have had mine since launch). Confusingly, you can of course output hirez stereo from a blueray or DVD over optical.

Interestingly, with the recent advent of a bunch of HDMI switchers with HDMI audio de-embedding, there are now several ways to rip your SACDs to hirez PCM and get them into you computer music library. I imagine it is not kosher to get into the topic here though. But I finally have a way to get my SACD music into my second music system where my 990 is, fed from my mac.

I could have sworn it output stereo from SACD's, but I never used one so I am sure you're correct - almost weirder that it converts to DD or DTS.

We were both sort of right:



http://www.ps3sacd.com/faq.html#_Toc177216796

When I was at 2.0, I always had DTS enabled, so I didn't realize you could force it to stereo by turning off DTS. But it was still only 48KHz downmixed from mch DSD, so never hi res PCM. I think that would have violated Sony's own SACD licensing agreements.

I think one could argue that what they did was already a violation of the SACD licensing agreement, but who's going to complain? It's Sony on both sides of the discussion...

Interestingly, someone has created software to rip DSD data off of SACDs that will run on the older PS3s with firmware 3.55 or earlier under the normal PS3 OS.

My PS3's firmware is to current to do so, as I keep it current for gaming. But it is an interesting development.

I saw that recently, as well. It appears that it was related to an exception in copy protection that was limited to the old PS3's and then rectified in later firmware. It wasn't clear to me how the resulting data could be used - if it had to be played through a PS3, or if there was some way to allow PC playback.

There are some pro audio devices from Korg (and Sony?) that will allow playback from a computer. No DSD ,capable DACs that I am aware of yet though. You can, however, burn the DSD to other disc formats like regular DVD-R and play them in your PS3, and keep your original SACDs as archival backups.