Recommend me a new/(-ish) SACD Multi-Channel AV receiver!

That box does only stereo.

 

Or some older ones that may be even cheaper.

 

Yes, unless the used is an OPPO-205. Glad I bought mine before they announced discontinuance.It still satisfies although I did just discover the usb B input does not have a path to or from DACs for subwoofer support. I’m kind of bummed out about that.

 

There are many used universal players available from Oppo, Cambridge Audio, Yamaha and Pioneer. A simple Google search will yield many results. Did not include Sony as I've had extremely bad luck with their disc players in the past.

 

Yes, my comment was relegated to new players out there.

 

I realize that. Was just posting and option to buying a new Sony player.

 

There may still be some Yamaha BD 681 units around. I picked one up in November as a hedge against my Oppo BD 83 dying out.

 

I never found the USB B input of any use because it is stereo only. LAN and HDMI are more capable.

 

I bought a Pioneer DVD / DVD-Audio / SACD player with an HDMI out way back in 2008 or so for $99. A few years later in 2011 I bought a scratched demo Pioneer Elite SC-25, one down from the top of the line for $350. The SACD display popped up on the front panel when I played the single layer, three channel mix of Miles Davis Kind Blue. Next up was the 5.1 remix of Sympathy For The Devil. Both were amazing listens. The DACS in those flagship Pioneer Elite receivers are very capable.

 

Network is most disappointing, not gapless.

 

Here are the specs on the inexpensive Pioneer AVR I have. It's no longer available, but I have to imagine the successor is similar.

Specification | VSX-LX103 | AV Receivers | Products | Pioneer Home Audio Visual (pioneer-audiovisual.com)

See the sixth line below:

 

I have an old Denon AVR-4806 here (which I'm not using) which can connect via Denon Link 3rd Edition to a compatible Denon player and transmit SACD, digitally, with very low jitter. This sounds surprisingly good. For the ultimate implementation, find a Denon AVP-A1HD. I would recommend avoiding the AVR-38XX and AVR-43XX series kit. Poor quality analogue stages.

The problem with audio over HDMI was always that the audio clock derived from the video clock and was hopelessly susceptible to jitter.

Some manufacturers managed to fix this, including Arcam and Pioneer, whilst Denon got around it with a separate audio clock signal run over a separate coax link (so two cables).

The problem with the Arcam and Pioneer implementations is they relied on DSD-PCM conversion. Actually I am not aware of any kit outside of D&M holdings that decodes DSD directly.

As others have said for convergence purposes the best sounding players you will get are the Oppo designs, a Denon DVD-A1UD, or the Ayre players (which are outstanding but some serious £££).

 

Are you referring to using the Oppo GUI to stream from a source as opposed to streaming from server?

 

My old Pioneer Elite VSX-03THX AVR would play SACD over HDMI via a Sony PlayStation 3 player. The Pioneer used Wolfson DACs, and had a 4 Ohm stable amp section. I swapped between NHT speakers and Monsoon speakers, depending on mood, and the sound quality was very listenable.

I should experiment with my current HT gear, and see if I could achieve similar results. A totl Yamaha Aventage AVR now, but I'm still using a Sony Blu-ray player, that supports SACD.

 

Aventage was on my radar, but out of my budget. For what it’s worth, the SC-25 and SC-27 have Wolfson WM8740 DACs. I left my setup with my children when I walked out. They still enjoy it with cable TV, streaming and Nintendo.

 

My DLNA laptop is server to OPPO. Network connection is sometimes wired, sometimes wireless. OPPO does not do gapless, from these configurations; and, all folders/music is presented in alphabetical order. Therefore, for gapless/multi-channel/album order of music, I use usb drive connection to OPPO.

 

To clarify, does this mean you are using the Oppo GUI to access content? If so, yes, I acknowledge the lack of gapless playback with that configuration.

 

Yes, OPPO GUI.

 

OK. That's the problem.

 

My current biggest frustration with using my Sony X800s' GUI for streaming music from my servers, is their insistence on displaying/playing album tracks alphabetically.

In order to be able to relatively quickly access any given album, I use a multi-folder arrangement that's basically MUSIC - Folders labelled A-Z - sub folders breaking those letter down further - then alpha by artist/group - then each album in its own folder by alpha. Up until that point everything's ok; it will take 30 seconds or less to access any album in my collection. There's a minimal amount of waiting time as I scroll/buffer through each sub-folder. But once inside the album folder the tracks show up not by track number, but in alpha order. Going that route I can't play an album in its intended order, unless I manually select each track.

At the higher level of the GUI, I can also search by artist, or album or... but none of those solve the problem. By artist would lose the convenience of the sub-folder approach and mean scrolling through thousands of names to get to ZZ Top, for example, and even then the next level below artist spits out all their songs; and album would again involve potentially scrolling through tens of thousands of album folders and then the album is presented in alpha order anyhow.

It seems like a simple fix, but like all things service-related when it comes to Sony, whenever I've written to their customer support to suggest it, either they ignore the message, or send back a "form" response that's as useful as "have you tried rebooting your device."

Rant out.

Jeff

 

To get frustration free in order music to my OPPO, it's either a usb drive connection for hi-res bass managed multi-channel, or Airport Express to optical input for 16/44.1 bass managed stereo pleasure. usb B connection path to and from DACs remains in left and right front channels and therefore no .1, which stretches my full range speakers. I'm going to solve the problem by adding a Parasound P 6 preamp which will preclude the OPPO to disc duty.

 

Update on the out-of-order album contents frustration issue...

As described in this thread, while trying to solve one problem through the use of the MinimServer package on a new Synology NAS, I discovered that MinimServer solves the out-of-order problem by presenting album folder contents to the Sony in proper album order.

This has lead me to conclude that the problem was not so much to do with Sony, but rather is specific to a given Sony/server interaction. Whatever app/package that's installed on my Seagate servers is not giving the Sony a chance to do the right thing. However MinimServe on the new Synology NAS does.

Right now I can't stop smiling over this and am looking forward to my music listening time today way more than usual.

Jeff

 

You could get a used oppo 103 for around 500. and there are multiple Marantz AVR's from AC4Less that will do SACD through HDMI. Some just through HDMI, and others HDMI and/or analog out for around 999.00, so right at budget line.

 

Well after looking again many models are out of stock but this one is still in your price point that would do DSD.
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Hey guys. I'm trying to set up my first Surround system. For stereo, I've had my Marantz DV7600 SACD player and Creek 5350SE 2-channel amp forever. I just got an Oppo BDP-93 for additional Blu-Ray and now need to buy an AV receiver for surround sound to connect to it. Is that right? What about a Marantz 1500 or 1600 series AV amp? Will all this work together for what I want?

Thanks