Manufacturers forced to stop SACD players production

[Elberoth]

Sony just stopped SACD support. They have stopped manufacturing SACD decoding chips, meaning ALL manufacturers have to stop SACD player production. This is why dCS Rossini - which is the Puccini replacement - does not have SACD drive.

Esoteric has some stock, but that will not last forever. So is DCS but only for the Vivaldi.

I wonder if Sony will enable SACD ripping under those circumstances ?

 

[LL21]

wow...so if the SACD chips are 'dead', what does this mean for DSD? Are there other ways to go 'pure DSD'?

 

[Elberoth]

DSD does not need those chips. Only SACD drivers do. Sony still offers a full support for DSD.

 

[LL21]

DSD does not need those chips. Only SACD drivers do. Sony still offers a full support for DSD.

got it...so the software is safe...Sony is really phasing out SACD players which, i suppose, does not come as a huge surprise.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Has this been officially announced by Sony? I'd like to see some confirmation before I believe this.

 

[Hiro]

Has this been officially announced by Sony? I'd like to see some confirmation before I believe this.

+1

Sounds like a made up story to me.

Marantz has just announced a new SACD player at the High End Munich Show. It's set for September release:

http://andreweverard.com/2015/05/14...pecial-editions-with-new-sa-14se-and-pm-14se/

 

[Elberoth]

Heard it from two industry members at Munich.

 

[Hiro]

I suspect some fatal miscommunication there...

 

[Orb]

Heard it from two industry members at Munich.

So does this mean the only media they are now pushing is digital download (ignoring CDs from this question)?

Thanks
Orb

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Heard it from two industry members at Munich.

Would still like to see proof. Talk is cheap.

 

[Hiro]

Would still like to see proof. Talk is cheap.

Yep. Two "industry members"... apparently not from Sony... ostensibly claim that Sony stopped manufacturing SACD decoding chips.

It sounds fishy to me.

 

[amirm]

Seems pretty believable to me. Just to explain what I think is being done, is phasing out of the silicon that goes into the optical drive. SACD has special hardware which detects the physical watermark on the disc itself to decide if the disc is authentic. So while the rest of the hardware to read those discs is generic, this part is not. With the volumes of these drives measured in thousands of units, it would make no sense to keep producing them.

Playing downloaded content doesn't rely on this since the bits are not coming from optical drives, nor have any type of copy protection like this.

 

[Elberoth]

I will try to confirm this info from another (industry) source.

 

[rbbert]

Does Oppo's Mediatek board use Sony's SACD chip?

 

[amirm]

Does Oppo's Mediatek board use Sony's SACD chip?

It wouldn't be in that board. It would be in the drive itself. If someone has a close up of the electronics on the drive we can see if it has a Sony IC.

 

[Priaptor]

Adam,

I hope you are right; sorry disc spinners (and I do feel your pain if this is true), but I am really fed up with companies releasing SACDs and not having them available in their native format (assuming they were mastered to DSD) for those of us who want to listen on our computer libraries. Should this turn out to be true, and I have no reason to doubt you, it will hopefully force those still mastering in DSD and ripping to SACD to selling their wares as downloads. Of course the unintended consequences could be that those mixing straight to DSD will no longer do so in order to release a physical disc such as a CD?? I for one have and never will have a desire to concoct a Rube Goldberg apparatus to rip an SACD and unfortunately have passed on some great music waiting for its download version which never seems to come or only available from a site, because I live in America, don't have the ability to buy.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I wonder what Andreas Koch ( Playback Designs ) and Ted Smith (PS Audio) think about this rumour? they both are very connected to Sony behind the scenes.

almost all my 1000-1200 SACD's are ripped already. also; I never leave my Playback Designs in 'disc' mode and always switch to 'dac' mode which powers down the disc drive. otherwise the 'Esoteric sourced' disc drive gets hot and fails every 2+ years. early in the life of my MPS-5 I had disc drive issues; but in the 4 years since I've mostly had it in dac mode no issues at all.

I hope this is not true as I like having the disc option; but I could live without it.

for my particular listening culture this is very close to a non-issue. my dsd and 2xdsd file collection grows daily; I have not purchased an SACD in a few years (since 'Wish You Were Here').

 

[marty]

my dsd and 2xdsd file collection grows daily

Mike,
Where do you download (most of?) your DSD or 2xDSD files?
Marty

 

[amirm]

Adam,

I hope you are right; sorry disc spinners (and I do feel your pain if this is true), but I am really fed up with companies releasing SACDs and not having them available in their native format (assuming they were mastered to DSD) for those of us who want to listen on our computer libraries. Should this turn out to be true, and I have no reason to doubt you, it will hopefully force those still mastering in DSD and ripping to SACD to selling their wares as downloads. Of course the unintended consequences could be that those mixing straight to DSD will no longer do so in order to release a physical disc such as a CD?? I for one have and never will have a desire to concoct a Rube Goldberg apparatus to rip an SACD and unfortunately have passed on some great music waiting for its download version which never seems to come or only available from a site, because I live in America, don't have the ability to buy.

That is a nice glass half full way of looking at it .

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike,
Where do you download (most of?) your DSD or 2xDSD files?
Marty

I have a few friends who are active in ripping Lps and tapes to 2xdsd and ripping SACD's to dsd that load those files directly onto my server. I own almost 100% of the same source recordings for those rips, but don't do it myself.

I have downloaded many dsd files from the on-line sources such as Channel Classics and Super Hirez and others.

I've run out of room for storing silver discs and elected not to add storage for more. my tape library has pushed in to my silver disc library area. so my motivation for changing directions in how I listen to digital has a few issues.

5 years ago my son ripped about 1500 of my cd's to the server, mostly pop/rock and some jazz. he wanted to listen to that music. he bought a Kodak 50 disc loader to do that job. my next project is to rip the rest of my 3500 CD's onto my server so the access is easier. I can still use that Kodak loader to do 50 at a time. so it's something I can do. there are many of my CD's, particularly jazz and especially classical, that I love that I have lost touch with. I'm looking forward to having server access to all that great music.