Universal Disc Player as Transport for SACD and more - thoughts/questions

[Charlie Jefferson]

So I bought a cheap-ish Universal disc spinner, the Denon 1713 for £250 ex-dem, and I've been running it wiith all the various disc formats at my disposal.

I've also still got my Arcam CD92 for a couple of weeks until my brother-in-law trials it prior to possible purchase, so I've been able to compare it too.

First impressions of the Denon and a few questions:

1) Denon feels a bit a bit cheap and insubstantial compared to the Arcam, build wise.

2) Pleased with the Denon, in transport only mode, playing Blu-rays and DVD-A when compared to my PS3.

3) CDs also sound pretty good. Remembering all discs are into my DAC.

4) I couldn't distinguish between CDs into my Arcam/DAC and into the Denon/DAC

(Lossless files streamed from the Mac to DAC optically were similar too)

5) SACDs played in the Denon into DAC, sampling rate displayed as 88.2kHz, sounded good too. But then I also tried missing out the DAC and linking the SACD directly to my Roksan pre-amp. That sounded very similar.

Is there a way to get better SACD sound using the DAC? Or is the joint best way, simply SACD to pre-amp?

I'm not using the NAD as pre-amp, just as a DAC.

Finally, and not because I want to get rid of my DAC, but could I, in theory, just play all discs in my Denon player and connect it directly via analogue RCAs to my pre-amp?

CDs, DVD-As, SACDs would all play, wouldn't they? Blu-rays need an HDMI enabled connection, though. Or do they?

 

[manicm]

You can get better sound for SACDs through DACs, but only through newer and expensive ones which accept native DSD streams. Since your NAD DAC is otherwise quite a premium component you'd want to hold on to it.

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

You can get better sound for SACDs through DACs, but only through newer and expensive ones which accept native DSD streams. Since your NAD DAC is otherwise quite a premium component you'd want to hold on to it.

Thanks for that.

So am I right in thinking that the DSD sent out by my Denon player is downsampled/converted (don't know which is more accurate) by the NAD DAC into a PCM signal peaking at 88.2kHz??? And that a DAC that natively accepted the DSD stream would retain a higher sampling rate of 192kHz?

If any of the above is true or near enough how come the SACD signal straight into my Caspian pre-amp, and missing out the DAC, also sounds pretty good indeed.