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Topic: Record SACD full 24bit (Read 14430 times) previous topic - next topic
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Record SACD full 24bit

Recording SACD full 24bit

Aside from the discussions about ripping the SACD layer (which can't be done right now) there is a better solution than recording via the analog output from the player to the analog input of a soundcard.

The limitation is the analog domain of a soundcard which doesn't come close to high end audio. However if we were able to use the digital output from the player and the digital input from the soundcard we would be able to "record"the full 24bit resolution without any degradation.

The problem is: Digital output is not available during playback of the SACD layer.
So we have to make a digital output for a SACD-capable player.

This is not such a big problem. For instance the player DVP720SA (Philips) has a built in 6-channel DA-converter from cirrus logic. This PCM DA converter is fed with 24bit data during playback of SACD.

Connecting an I2S to SPDIF converter parallel to the converter would supply us with a WORKING digital output which could be connected to the input of a 24bit soundcard. Although it is real time recording (be patient) it is without any loss of quality.

I have already bought the player and inspected the PCB. It is a matter of some time to do it.

Are you interested in the results. Do you have tips or questions? Remarks?.

I am new to this forum and would be interested in your reactions.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #1 –
It's certainly an interesting idea and is unlikely to prove difficult. It's probably illegal in the USA, so we are likely not allowed to discuss it here.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #2 –
Quote
Recording SACD full 24bit

Aside from the discussions about ripping the SACD layer (which can't be done right now) there is a better solution than recording via the analog output from the player to the analog input of a soundcard.

The limitation is the analog domain of a soundcard which doesn't come close to high end audio. However if we were able to use the digital output from the player and the digital input from the soundcard we would be able to "record"the full 24bit resolution without any degradation.

The problem is: Digital output is not available during playback of the SACD layer.
So we have to make a digital output for a SACD-capable player.

This is not such a big problem. For instance the player DVP720SA (Philips) has a built in 6-channel DA-converter from cirrus logic. This PCM DA converter is fed with 24bit data during playback of SACD.

Connecting an I2S to SPDIF converter parallel to the converter would supply us with a WORKING digital output which could be connected to the input of a 24bit soundcard. Although it is real time recording (be patient) it is without any loss of quality.

I have already bought the player and inspected the PCB. It is a matter of some time to do it.

Are you interested in the results. Do you have tips or questions? Remarks?.

I am new to this forum and would be interested in your reactions.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357350"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It isn´t really working this way. The SACD signal is already converted to a PCM Signal when it reaches the DAC. An additional chip inside does this conversion.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #3 –
While I understand the basic uneasiness about going analogue and recording that back to digital I suspect in parctice it will not result in noticeable degregration -- as long as one stays away from CreativeLies and other gaming cards. The idea that "the analog domain of a soundcard which doesn't come close to high end audio" is way off the mark if looking at professional or the better semi-or cards. Rather the opposite is more likely to be true.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #4 –
Quote
Quote

This PCM DA converter is fed with 24bit data during playback of SACD.

Connecting an I2S to SPDIF converter parallel to the converter would supply us with a WORKING digital output which could be connected to the input of a 24bit soundcard.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It isn´t really working this way. The SACD signal is already converted to a PCM Signal when it reaches the DAC. An additional chip inside does this conversion.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357398"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes, that is what he said. He is going to tap the PCM before the DAC.
Quote
Are you interested in the results. Do you have tips or questions? Remarks?.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357350"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well, I am interested, because here are some SACDs I would like to be able to listen to through my foobar2000-based music centre. As cabbagerat already pointed out, this discussion board is hosted in USA, so we may not be allowed to discuss the matter here. Maybe you can turn to [a href="http://www.dvdupgrades.ch/150019/Modification/SPDIF/Output/Six_channel_S_P_DIF_output_board.html]this European service[/url]? [dvdupgrades.ch] And this forum [diyaudio.com] seems more like the right place to start discussing the mod. Good Luck!

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #5 –
Quote
While I understand the basic uneasiness about going analogue and recording that back to digital I suspect in parctice it will not result in noticeable degregration -- as long as one stays away from Creative Lies and other gaming cards.


That's something you and I will always agree upon  Discussion about extracting SACD / DVD-A is something we like to avoid on the forums for numerous legal reasons. It's also a hassle to do anyway.
budding I.T professional

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #6 –
Quote
While I understand the basic uneasiness about going analogue and recording that back to digital I suspect in parctice it will not result in noticeable degregration -- as long as one stays away from CreativeLies and other gaming cards. The idea that "the analog domain of a soundcard which doesn't come close to high end audio" is way off the mark if looking at professional or the better semi-or cards. Rather the opposite is more likely to be true.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357411"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I agree. there are audio cards close to high-end specs, however any unwanted conversion should be avoided IMHO. A matter of principle. The interesting thing with going over SPDIF is that one can use any cheap soundcard with digital input.

About the legal issue. Is it not allowed to to this even for private use in the USA?
I am not intending to burn new CD's but to play audio from a PC with digital output and external high end DAC's close to the amplifiers.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #7 –
Quote
I agree. there are audio cards close to high-end specs, however any unwanted conversion should be avoided IMHO. A matter of principle. The interesting thing with going over SPDIF is that one can use any cheap soundcard with digital input.


Not entirely true ... with cheap soundcards (especially the ones that are not equipped with an Envy24-based chipset), the likeliness of internal resampling/signal processing rises.

You'll have to make sure that your soundcard of choice can be "slaved" to external digital clocks ... and it would not hurt if the soundcard's PLL jitter levels at high bit-depth and sampling rate are within specs to avoid signal degradation.

This rules out some el-cheapo soundcards and onboard solutions with SPDIF inputs ... but with a reasonably-priced M-Audio model (e.g. Delta AP 192) you should be on the safe side.
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #8 –
Not entirely true ... with cheap soundcards (especially the ones that are not equipped with an Envy24-based chipset), the likeliness of internal resampling/signal processing rises.

You'll have to make sure that your soundcard of choice can be "slaved" to external digital clocks ... and it would not hurt if the soundcard's PLL jitter levels at high bit-depth and sampling rate are within specs to avoid signal degradation.

This rules out some el-cheapo soundcards and onboard solutions with SPDIF inputs ... but with a reasonably-priced M-Audio model (e.g. Delta AP 192) you should be on the safe side.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357425"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
[/quote]

Hmm..
Slaving to the input digital stream is possible for a lot of cheap cards.
Low jitter specs only apply for the final DAC's. (not the ones on the cheap audio-card).

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #9 –
Quote
It's certainly an interesting idea and is unlikely to prove difficult. It's probably illegal in the USA, so we are likely not allowed to discuss it here.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357395"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I think since none of us have tried it or even know how to do it, but rather just discussing if its possible we're probably ok.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #10 –
is there even a way to make this an all digital process?  i thought the whole point of sacd was that it was dsd, in which case there'd be no way to get to pcm without doing a d(dsd) to a to d(pcm) conversion?  in which case, by definition it could not be "full resolution"

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #11 –
Quote
is there even a way to make this an all digital process?  i thought the whole point of sacd was that it was dsd, in which case there'd be no way to get to pcm without doing a d(dsd) to a to d(pcm) conversion?  in which case, by definition it could not be "full resolution"
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357459"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

You're right, in a sense this would not be "full resolution" because you are still converting from DSD to PCM. However, in this case the conversion would be entirely in the digital domain (as opposed to just hooking up a SACD player to a high quality analog ADC).

BTW, MAXXSOUND, have you verified that the I2C data to the DAC is not encrypted? I have no reason to suspect this, but it certainly would make things a little more difficult (and would certainly be easy for them to implement if they wanted to).

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #12 –
Quote
This is not such a big problem. For instance the player DVP720SA (Philips) has a built in 6-channel DA-converter from cirrus logic. This PCM DA converter is fed with 24bit data during playback of SACD.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357350"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
What's the part number of that DAC? If it's a standard 6 channel part, then the solution should be trivial. If it's some sort of custom part supporting encryption (as bryant said) then it will be much harder.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #13 –
Quote
Recording SACD full 24bit

[...] For instance the player DVP720SA (Philips) has a built in 6-channel DA-converter from cirrus logic. This PCM DA converter is fed with 24bit data during playback of SACD.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357350"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Hilariously funny.
So you tell me this player decodes the DSD stream, converts it to 24 bit PCM and feeds its DAC-blackbox with this 24 bit PCM signal which quite possibly converts it back to a an oversampled 1-bit signal internally (sigma delta DA converter) ?

You go Philips !

It's quite hard to believe since Philips is one of the SACD creaters whose idea initially was to save digital signal conversions in favour of quality and simplicity. Are you sure that this player doesn't output the original DSD signal directly via a 1-bit DAC ?


Sebi

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #14 –
Quote
It's quite hard to believe since Philips is one of the SACD creaters whose idea initially was to save digital signal conversions in favour of quality and simplicity. Are you sure that this player doesn't output the original DSD signal directly via a 1-bit DAC ?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Have a look: [a href="http://servicedownload3.free.fr/DVP720SA_EN.pdf]DVP720SA Service Manual[/url] [servicedownload3.free.fr] with complete schematics and board layouts.

It is very believable that a consumer grade DVD-player uses cheap off-the-shelf parts, all based on PCM.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #15 –
From the manual linked to, it appears that it would be rather trivial to modify the player to allow a SPDIF stream of the digital audio to be captured. I would rather not discuss the details, I would really rather not get the operators of HA into trouble.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #16 –
I suppose anyone can legally modify or build own audio hardware devices. Let's assume the source is for example unprotected DD or DTS audio, perhaps even homemade recordings. Then the discussion would be only about how to grab the decoded 5.1 PCM signal before the DA conversion.


[span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%']Edit: DVD -> DD, added "recordings"[/span]

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #17 –
Quote
I suppose anyone can legally modify or build own audio hardware devices. Let's assume the source is for example unprotected DVD or DTS audio, perhaps even homemade. Then the discussion would be only about how to grab the decoded 5.1 PCM signal before the DA conversion.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357623"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


i don't believe it *is* in fact legal to do so.. for some reason [likely because the multimedia industry has a very rich lobby, and it's acceptable for political parties to receive money in exchange for political favors in the US] you're not allowed to modify stuff you've bought if you intend to create backup copies of said media..
this will soon be culminating in the blu-ray players that can seemingly be disabled by sony/manufacturers at will if they feel it's justified, although i'm not sure why this would be possible given the privacy laws that exist in the civilized world.

anyway, modifying your own equipment isn't necessarily legal

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #18 –
Some answers:
I2S is NOT encrypted because the used DAC's CS4360 ans AKM4382A are not capable of decrypting in any way.

Degradation due to conversion from DSD to PCM? I don't think so. It is a 100%
lossless conversion. In fact it could be reconverted to DSD at any time you want.

Any digital stream can be converted in an unlimited other formats as long as it is lossless without degradation. We don't have to see DSD as some brillant format.

The best DAC's as far as i know are fed with i2s datastreams. This can be 44, 48 96 or 192ks and 24bit. Internally the modulators DAc run in a 1 bit constructure (DSD if you like) with sampling rate up to 25Mhz just to do some noise shaping.

Some people are talking about clock jitter. This is often misunderstood. The only place where clockjitter is VERY critical is in the final stage in the DAC. Clock jitter in DAC devices cause noise. Clock jitter at a soundcard's input is totally unimportant as long as it does not exceed more than half a bit time. In that case data would not be transferable al all.

Back to th estart of the topic!
I still believe there is a ligitimate way in recording from the 24 bit PCB stream with modifications in a SACD player. It makes use of the encoder wich has been bought in a ligitimate way. It's in the SACD player! As long as we don't reproduce a SACD in any way or distibute the extrcted data what could be wrong?

I my personal situation I run a PC to be the sourse of all the music which all was legitimately bought  from the manufactorer. The simple thing I would like to add is the possibility to play the SACD quality from the PC-music-box.

I really like al your comments but some I do not agree with.
To be continued?

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #19 –
I don't think the usual high-end modifications to the CD players or amps are illegal. How does this differ? In my opinion this can be used just for replacing the crappy standard DAC with a better external one. A computer (or any other storage system for copies) doesn't have to be involved in this at all.

Of course the users should not break any copyright laws and modifications for that purpose should not be discussed here.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #20 –
Quote
Degradation due to conversion from DSD to PCM? I don't think so. It is a 100%
lossless conversion. In fact it could be reconverted to DSD at any time you want.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357628"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


If you convert DSD->PCM->DSD do you wind up with the exact same DSD stream you began with? I agree there would be no audible quality loss, and that keeping the signal path completely digital is superior to an analog stage, but technically I don't think a DSD->PCM->DSD conversion would be mathmatically lossless.

Quote
I still believe there is a ligitimate way in recording from the 24 bit PCB stream with modifications in a SACD player. It makes use of the encoder wich has been bought in a ligitimate way. It's in the SACD player! As long as we don't reproduce a SACD in any way or distibute the extrcted data what could be wrong?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357628"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


In many countries there's probably nothing wrong. Unfortunately here in the US we have something called the DMCA which makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection for ANY purpose whatsoever. SACD players not having digital outputs is a copy protection mechanism. Modifying an SACD player to have a digital output is circumventing that.

It's a stupid, unjust law, but that's how it is here.

Good luck with your project. 

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #21 –
Quote
In many countries there's probably nothing wrong. Unfortunately here in the US we have something called the DMCA which makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection for ANY purpose whatsoever. SACD players not having digital outputs is a copy protection mechanism. Modifying an SACD player to have a digital output is circumventing that.

It's a stupid, unjust law, but that's how it is here.

Good luck with your project. 
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Indeed. This is the wrong forum, even though it is on topic.

Quote
I still believe there is a ligitimate way in recording from the 24 bit PCB stream with modifications in a SACD player. It makes use of the encoder wich has been bought in a ligitimate way. It's in the SACD player! As long as we don't reproduce a SACD in any way or distibute the extrcted data what could be wrong?

I my personal situation I run a PC to be the sourse of all the music which all was legitimately bought  from the manufactorer. The simple thing I would like to add is the possibility to play the SACD quality from the PC-music-box.

I really like al your comments but some I do not agree with.
To be continued?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=357628"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Please continue, but on a forum where these modifications are discussed on a daily basis. Eg [a href="http://www.diyaudio.com/]www.diyaudio.com[/url] or a forum of your choice. Did you have a look at this topic already? There are other threads on the subject on that forum, but none on modding DVP720SA in the way you suggest. You could start that thread.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #22 –
Some small objections:

Quote
Degradation due to conversion from DSD to PCM? I don't think so. It is a 100%
lossless conversion. In fact it could be reconverted to DSD at any time you want.

No, it is not. DSD sampling frequency is 2.8 MHz. The max sampling frequency you can feed a PCM DAC with is 192 KHz. When doing DSD -> 192 KHz PCM conversion you would lose all information from 96 KHz upwards in the best case, although this information consists of just noise in practice, and audible differences would be none in practice.

Quote
The best DAC's as far as i know are fed with i2s datastreams. This can be 44, 48 96 or 192ks and 24bit. Internally the modulators DAc run in a 1 bit constructure (DSD if you like) with sampling rate up to 25Mhz just to do some noise shaping.

It seems that today DACs are not 1-bit internally anymore. AFAIK they are between 3 and 5 bit. That's one of the criticisms to DSD marketing, it is no longer true.

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #23 –
Thank you all
You have made a clear statement
I will move to another forum

I enjoyed staing here!

Record SACD full 24bit

Reply #24 –
This has been done with Denon 2900's for a couple of years, it works.

If, however, you would spread copies illegally I belive a player-unique watermark is inserted in the PCM stream and if a record company is getting their hands on a copy they can blacklist that very player for future releases.