Portible DSD players and question

Ok so I have been thinking, are there any portible players that support DSD? If so, is there any way to get the DSD from my SACDs. Is it even worth it to go this route for headphone/in-ear phones?

 

http://www.fiio.net/en/products/39

or

http://www.fiio.net/en/products/2

 

I have the X3 2nd Gen. You can get the DSD files off your SACD by ripping it with a special modded PS3. Worth it depends on your headphones and DAC and if you personally feel DSD is all that. If you are just going to power your Koss cans from the X3 I'd say no, it's not worth it. With your Stax cans I'd assume you'd be just plugging the amp inline with your system and can just use the SACD player.

 

There are multiple players that support DSD. There are the aforementioned Fiio units, along with Pono, Sony, and Astell&Kern. To rip SACDs, you need an old SACD-capable PS3 running an older firmware.

Personally, I think it's a waste of time.

 

You've seen from the above posts that there are several portable players with DSD support. I have a Pono, and good DSD on it is quite nice. I'm glad I've dug into the proper PS3 and proper software components to gain full access to DSD for backup and playback purposes.

As to the worth of it for you personally, no one can make that decision for you. And you will be faced with things to overcome. To begin with, you certainly need a decent stock of SACDs that you get enjoyment from. That means in particular that you currently enjoy the DSD layer(s) of your SACDs. But having the proper discs is just the start. You also need to enjoy mastering technical challenges, not to mention enjoy gaining increased access to various music sources.

A significant hurdle is locating the proper type of PS3 with the proper operating system to serve as a hardware foundation for backing-up/extracting DSD files. The systems are certainly getting harder to find, but once you know what you are looking for, eBay may serve you as it served me.

Now there is a fair amount you need to know if you wish to access DSD from discs. For groundwork let me suggest you start reading backwards from the end of this lengthy thread till you have a good feel for things. Ted_b (also a sometime poster in the Steve Hoffman forums) is significantly the center of things, and he is the person who has put in the effort to write guides for the process, and pretty much knows about locating sources for software components. If you haven't joined that set of forums, joining might be worth your while.

If you wish to take the challenge on--though it might be frustrating at times--enjoy the ride!

 

Onkyo's HF Player app supports DSD.

 

Pono does now. Check the recent issues of Stereophile for some nice reviews.

 

The 2nd Gen FiiO X3 plays DSD natively, does not convert it to PCM before playback. I don't think even the current X5 does that. The X3 is also more affordable than most other digital audio players out there.

 

Does it convert to PCM before playback though? So far, I haven't seen one other than the 2nd Gen X3 that doesn't convert to PCM first.

 

check out their site and the Stereophile article.