I know this is diy but there is a limit to how intense this pursuit should be for many including me so with that in mind, are there any audiophile adequate DVD/SACD players under $200? What I'm looking for is a short list of great consumer audio gear that is cheap. The inconvenience and expense of a separate transport and DAC discourages me from diy digital sources but I would also consider mods of existing players that make it under the $200 number. Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Something was brought to my attention that I thought I should share here. There were some manufacturers that used standard computer internal DVD drives in their players and then used the bitstream out function to feed an external DAC. This would seem to resolve the issue of laser durability and format obsolescence but is there any reason it wouldn't sound good? Will the PC DVD transport be inadequate?
I've just bought a Pioneer BDP-170, which is the 2014 model so cheap. If you believe reviews SACD quality is good and the next big hop up is the oppo, which was outside my budget. I have not done any A/B comparisons of the analog output vs my DAC running off it yet, but so far it does what it says on the tin. very few bluray at this level still have sacd capability sadly.
As you note, this is DIY - start out with something cheap and mod the hell out of it to get it into audiophile territory. For a DVD player as an S/PDIF source this would involve either replacing the switching supply with a well isolated linear one, or building a kick-*** filter (on one side or other of the SMPSU) so that none of the CM noise from the switching supply makes it down the coaxial cable into the DAC.
well he wants SACD as well, which DVD players wont do.
Wrt cleaning the supply, how does one measure what is there and what improvement is to be gained? I would have expected a bigger gain from putting proper 75Ohm BNCs on both ends and decent coax than modding the digital power supply.
Wrt cleaning the supply, how does one measure what is there and what improvement is to be gained? I would have expected a bigger gain from putting proper 75Ohm BNCs on both ends and decent coax than modding the digital power supply.
Yes, I am looking for a universal player so the idea of a control board with an IDE/SATA interface (think arduino) with a separate DAC would seem to be the ultimate DIY digital source platform. This is the only way I can see making a truly universal player that is obsolescence proof. Richard makes the point well, if the PS is in order there aren't many reasons the cartridge ROM player couldn't be mated with the right DAC to sound great. Whether this can be done for less than $200 is doubtful but I suspect this route would be more fruitful than cloning a Shiga 🙂
True enough, I don't know of any el-cheapo solution to that as its Sony proprietary. Having said that I've just realized one of my DVD players (a Pioneer) does handle SACD. However when I looked inside it seems they convert it to PCM and send it through a BB DAC.
Common-mode noise is measurable, but I don't have the kit myself. You'd need something fairly expensive like a spectrum analyser to characterise it. I've gotten improvements in SQ myself from doing this - but I also modified my (home-brewed) DAC to make that less susceptible to CM noise too. I would expect little to no gain from changing to BNCs.
Well nothing will output DSD, Sony do not allow it, although you can download DSD from some hirez sites. Go figure. My pioneer can output up to 24/192 on S/PDIF, but no idea how much munging is done to the DSD stream. But it is cheap.
So why not go to AES/EBU and kill 2 birds with one stone? Matched impedance and balanced link so bye bye common mode noise...
There are nowadays USB DACs that handle DSD. Even for a DIYer there are USB modules which put it out (Amanero is one such, probably XMOS is another). At least they're fairly cheap.
Nope, AES/EBU doesn't eliminate CM noise. It does however keep the noise off the signal wires but that has never been an issue for me.
Yes but no disk player will output DSD. Ever. you have to download, or just hope the DAC in your player is as good as it gets.
Well nothing can elimate noise, but you should get around 40dB reduction with a balanced link in a level that you can't measure to start with. Kind of lost what you are trying to do with your noise mods.
The CM noise is carried over the cable no matter whether its coaxial (S/PDIF) or shielded twisted pair (AES/EBU). Its also carried along USB cables (twin shielded twisted pair). Guys like Steve Nugent (Empirical Audio) have figured out that CM chokes in USB cables make an improvement.
S/PDIF and USB are very different as USB carries power as well, and there have been measurements taken to show that ferrites on USB improve the power supply and therefore measured performance, but I have yet to see anything that says it improves the data performance.
With a well implemented balanced link it doesn't matter if the CM noise is carried over the cable, it gets cancelled at the receiver end. A half arsed friday design is another thing.
I note emprical want $200 for a common mode choke in a plastic box and have the cheek to say it improves their $6400 DAC. Got to admire them for that, but why not fit it as standard if its so wonderful, given the choke will cost a full $2?
With a well implemented balanced link it doesn't matter if the CM noise is carried over the cable, it gets cancelled at the receiver end. A half arsed friday design is another thing.
I note emprical want $200 for a common mode choke in a plastic box and have the cheek to say it improves their $6400 DAC. Got to admire them for that, but why not fit it as standard if its so wonderful, given the choke will cost a full $2?
I don't think we should underestimate the sonic improvement from a properly terminated signal, especially on co-ax. Ditto for the potential of signal coupling with the USB DC power conduits. Is everyone in agreement that the best result is likely to come from a checksum buffer copying the bits off spd/if and doing the clock conversion immediately off the perfected stream? When this is the case, the accuracy of the DAC clock and the algorithm that does the math seem to be more important than a little PS noise. This method will also relax the need for an expensive transport and fit perfectly with the principles I presented above for making a future proof digital source. Is everybody with me on this one?
I'm not aware that the USB data performance has any need for improvement. If there were errors, they'd be quite audible as glitching.
@bill - you seem not to have a grasp of common-mode noise. Its not the noise being carried on the signal pair that's the issue here, rather the ground noise. If the noise were only that on the signal pair, a very high input impedance receiver would be sufficient to prevent it getting on the ground - say a CMOS input comparator with very low input capacitance.
Who's to say Empirical don't already include a choke in their DAC - since the noise isn't going to be fully eliminated, more chokes in series lower the noise. Not that I'm here to defend their pricing, that's just a matter for their customers.
@bill - you seem not to have a grasp of common-mode noise. Its not the noise being carried on the signal pair that's the issue here, rather the ground noise. If the noise were only that on the signal pair, a very high input impedance receiver would be sufficient to prevent it getting on the ground - say a CMOS input comparator with very low input capacitance.
Who's to say Empirical don't already include a choke in their DAC - since the noise isn't going to be fully eliminated, more chokes in series lower the noise. Not that I'm here to defend their pricing, that's just a matter for their customers.
@terrrences: Your problem is that disk based and future proof may not be compatible. To be future proof you would rip everything to hard drive, which of course means you can't use SACD.
@abraxilito: You have moved the goalposts to noise on ground, which is, at least to me a non-issue as pin one goes to chassis and no where near the electronics. Have you found a new mechanism here?
@abraxilito: You have moved the goalposts to noise on ground, which is, at least to me a non-issue as pin one goes to chassis and no where near the electronics. Have you found a new mechanism here?
Good point, I suppose it depends upon how well DRM succeeds. They've been able to twist enough arms to kill DVD-A and foist HDMA on us so there will need to be some workaround 🙂billshurv said:
Which line buffers are compatible with SACD?
SACD you are on a loser with from Disk. As I said, your only hope is DSD downloads. Unless one day Sony has a change of heart, which I doubt.
Nonsense about the alleged 'goalposts' - I've been talking about noise on ground since post 4 where I mentioned coax. If you have XLRs implemented without any shared impedances on pin1 conductors, congratulations. In all the pictures I can recall having seen of internals of digital products the pin1 connection goes to the PCB, not the chassis. I agree chassis is the correct termination, but it doesn't necessarily eliminate the noise problem unless the outputs of the DAC are balanced too. With unbalanced outs, the outer of the RCA will go to chassis and then the cabling shields will electrically be in parallel with the mains earthing.
Sure I said that but the thread is about digital sources, not DACs or preamps. If you mod your DAC to get balanced outs, you would also need to mod your preamp to receive them. Beyond the scope of the thread.
Now what were you saying about goalposts moving?
Now what were you saying about goalposts moving?
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