Universal Disc Transport for High Res FLAC

I have found the sound quality of my modded Tascam CD200 via coax to be superior to my USB setup even after trying an iFi USB decrapifier. I actually prefer CD's over digital music because I like to read the liner notes when I listen.

Anyways, my only gripe with the CD setup is that I cannot play my high res FLAC's. I'm considering picking up a universal disc player (Like the new Oppo 203) which can play Blu ray, DVD, CD, and SACD (but it won't output SACD via coax because of license restrictions? What's up with that? I don't own SACD's so that doesn't matter to me but I can imagine some people will get screwed not knowing this).

Does anyone have experience burning their high res FLACs to DVD-A and Blu-Ray discs? I'm curious how this will compare sound wise to high end streamers and Lynx setups.

 

This is pretty much standard for SACD and DVD-A capable players - the music industry wanted a copy-protected source and CD wasn't it. They made sure they got that nailed down before they let "high-resolution" get out the door.

Won't do you any good ... at least on this player (see page 16 of the user manual), DVD-A won't output high-resolution audio at full-resolution over the S/PDIF digital outputs any more than it will with SACD. You'll need an HDCP compliant HDMI connection to do that, which limits your DAC selection hugely.

 

Ok, well that sucks ... but they say nothing about Blu Ray disks having that restriction. And Since Blu Ray has more storage, I could fit a few albums on a disc. Am a wrong in assuming that Blu-Ray can output full res FLACs since they don't mention any restrictions with the format?

 

While they don't mention it specifically (probably because there's even less Blu-Ray "Pure Audio" content than there is SACD or DVD-A), officially Blu-Ray high-resolution output is supposed to be limited to 48 KHz via any non-copy-protected digital interface. Which, once again, means you'll be limited to HDMI (or proprietary) interfaces for high-resolution digital output.

 

So basically, you can't output full res FLACs via disc to an external DAC (unless you buy an external HDMI de-embedder which, I don't know, makes me nervous because of potential audio degradation). Sort of makes Blu-Ray audio and DVD-A pointless.

The UPD-203 does have two USB ports in the back so I guess I could connect a flash drive with my files and then use the player as a digital transport to my DAC via coax. I need to read the manual to see if this is a viable alternative.

I'm only considering this product because I am in need of both a digital music transport and a 4K Blu Ray player. I had hoped that this unit could do both.

 

That's about the size of it, yes.

And typical HDMI audio-extractors are not exactly built with "audiophile sensitivities" in mind (think more "cheap, unlicensed, hack").

Some high-end players do a decent job with their internal DACs, but certainly not on the level of what's possible with dedicated converters.

 

I used to have an Oppo 103 blu-ray player and i always thought the spdiff out sounded like ass. This was many upgrades ago though so there might have been other factors, but to me it seemed quite high on jitter.

 

Well, Im on the hunt for the cheapest way to send 24bit FLAC over coax so i'm open to other suggestions.

 

What's cheapest will depend on your source/source options.

If you're running a PC, you might be able to run a COAX S/PDIF connection off a header on your motherboard. Next cheapest would likely be a standard sound-card with S/PDIF output (look for something with a transformer-isolated output), followed by a "pro" sound card with the same.

Beyond that you're into USB -> S/PDIF bridges (in which case, wait a little bit), and then NAI/AOIP boxes.

 

Currently considering a rasberry Pi solution but I'm still skeptical that it will sound better than a CD player, even with high res files.

 

A "simple" Raspberry Pi interface probably won't - at least compared to a GOOD CD transport. Pair the Pi with a proper S/PDIF capable interface, with rate-class-specific clocks (e.g. Digi+ Pro) and galvanic isolation (transformer) on the output and it should equal/beat most non-buffering/re-clocking disc-based transports.

Really good CD-transports are hard to beat, since the cost of a proper buffering/re-clocking output is dwarfed by the cost of the mechanics/drive electronics of a solid physical transport (so if you're using something with good mechanics, it's almost expected that the electronics will be first-rate), but ultimately any digital source is only as good as a) how little noise it can put on the output, and b) how accurately it can clock that output.

I've listened to a ton of high-end CD transports, and owned a Meridian 800 Reference player (think $20K, with multiple error-corrected read-passes and from-memory play), and a Linn CD12, and none of them stood up to a basic Linn Majik DS, let alone newer/better stuff.

 

Why?

 

Spoke to soon, I've been reading up on audio power supplies for the a Pi streamer and sound quality compared to a CDP.

So so far it looks like I need the following:

Rasberry Pi 3: https://www.adafruit.com/products/3055
Hifiberry Digi +Pro: https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/boards/hifiberry-digi-pro/
Ifi iPower: http://ifi-audio.com/portfolio-view/accessory-ipower/
Digi+ Case: https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/cases/steel-case-for-hifiberry-digi-black/

Anything else I'm missing.?
Any storage and interface recommendations?

 

There is one that has been developed almost entirely based on the feedback of this forum from Pi2Design. http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/raspberry-pi-i2s-to-spdif-hat.1990/

 

Agreed. I've gone through the same route but ended up with the Linn Klimax DS, which I sold after about a year. Never really thought it was that good, but very expensive
But much better than a lot of cd transports I've heard through the years.

Finally settled with Yggdrasil and I truly believe we'll see better and more cost efficient alternatives for USB in 2017 so trying to be patient to that end. Until then I found a very cheap used Lynx aes16 (non-express) and honestly I think trying to find a cd transport good enough to match this combo is very difficult.

By the way, for my sacd collection I use a cheap Pioneer BDP-170 to rip the high res layer to my NAS (Some sacds have different masterings on red book and sacd layer).

So. My advice is; it doesn't have to be expensive to output a good high res digital stream from PC and going down the cd transport road will not easily allow you to do that.
Cd transports for red book material can sound really really good and be found quite cheap too, but essentially think more long term. Can you live without high res? If not, steer away from physical media.

 

Well I decided to keep my Tascam CD player but expand my playback options with a Bluesound Node 2 streamer which apparently has a very high quality spdif output and a good user interface. It will handle my high res files with ease and it has MQA capabilities if that ever becomes a viable format. Seems like a very future proof product. It also supports virtually every streaming service known to man and it can work as a Roon endpoint.

I know opinions are all over the place when it comes to MQA but at the very least, I would like to give it a shot to see what all the fuss is about. The internal DAC is nothing special (Burr Brown PCM5122) but it has been tuned by Meridian for MQA and it is apparently sounds surprisingly good for the price. I'm sure the DAC doesn't compare to Schiit's multibit offerings but I'm going to be running coax out to a better DAC most of the time anyways so the fact that the internal DAC is MQA ready and included in the package is icing on the cake. I get to try out full MQA without having to buy an MQA certified external DAC (I don't know if anyone has looked but they are not cheap).