RE: 1. I currently have a Oppo BDP-103 and was planning to upgrade to the Oppo UDP-205 which has the latest Sabre DAC along with support for processing Dolby Atmos. If i upgrade the Bryston to the latest HDMI 2.0 Board I should be able to send the decoded PCM track to the Bryston which I presume the Bryston will be able to process though I might lose the Atmos coding. Is there any future plan or capability to enable the processor to decode Dolby atmos or do the cost benefits and design limitations far outweigh he effort?
We are not ready yet for Atmos and still debating benefits versus cost and development time. Since Atmos involves many more output channels, it will require a complete redesign of a sound processor rather than an upgrade.
RE: 2. After upgrading to the latest HDMI board while playing a SACD can I send a direct bitstream output to Bryston HDMI input? If it does accept a bitstream input can the DAC in the Bryston do a direct DSD to Analog conversion without doing an intermediary DSD to PCM conversion(I am aware I will lose distance and crossover processing if I go that route).
No you do not need the very latest HDMI board, as long as you have a 4K board it will support direct DSD. You will need a full USBX upgrade do be able to do that. You can use existing HDMI card (8 4K input but only one 4K HDCP2.2 input) that is being shipped right now (since late 2015).
The new USBX upgrade intercepts DSD bitstream off HDMI connection (as long as the player supports this mode) and SP2+USBX will decode it into 2 channel analog and/or will also be able to recreate surround modes (and apply speaker distance correction, crossover and bass management) if your SP3 has the latest mainboard revision 5 (since late 2016), or 2ch only in "passthru" mode and no processing if earlier mainboards.
RE: 3. If the above is not not possible then if I upgrade to the latest USB input can the DACS handle a direct DSD to analog conversion? What is the maximum sampling rate for multichannel and DSD the USB input can accept?
USBX upgrade does not decode multichannel streams, only 2 channel PCM 44.1k 16-24 bits up to 192k 16-24 bits, and 2 channel DSD 1x Native and DoP, and DSD 2x Native and DoP (DoP=DSD over PCM).
Only HDMI accepts multichannel formats, however even a 2 channel source can have surround and bass channels re-created by the SP3 digital signal processor using Dolby or DTS algorithms.
RE: 4. If the DACs cannot do a direct DSD to analog conversion then what is the maximum PCM sampling rate for multichannel and DSD the DACs can process?
Maximum accepted PCM rate is 192k and up to 24 bits, which is determined by the DAC chips and DSP processing used in the SP3. Multichannel PCM, Dolby and DTS formats are supported through HDMI inputs.
|