F The SACD standard does not allow audio output at all of the SACD layer(s) via coaxial or optical. It is part of the licensing agreement, and the only player to ever circumvent it was the original PS3 (which had SACD support and could output SACD's in stereo over optical).
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.
Previous Topic
Index
