Vanity103HD DoP output in SACD mode

Hi all,
The Vanity103HD module now has an optional firmware with selectable SACD playback in DoP mode. DoP stands for "DSD over PCM" and this method allows to send raw DSD stream in standard 24bit PCM frames at 176.4kHz over SPDIF. More details about the method can be found here.

In order to free up some FPGA resources for the DoP encoding functionality, the optional firmware lacks the 4.0 downmix. Downmixing has to be performed in PCM domain after DSD to PCM conversion and cannot be used with DoP output mode anyway. Please specify which firmware you wish to have loaded when ordering the Vanity103HD module.

Should you have any questions about DoP, feel free to discuss them in this thread.

Regards,
Pavel

Hello,

Curious if there is a list of known dac's that the Vanity103HP DoP over SPDIF has been proven to work with. I see that the PS Audio DS has been listed, but nothing for Mytek, dcs, MSB, others...

Very interested in getting a Vanity103HD connected to my dcs Debussy.

Thanks,
Jimmy

Hi Jimmy,
The Vanity103HD sends out a standard DoP v1 signal, so any DAC that supports this protocol should work. Our Hong Kong partner Volnet has tested a few DACs with the DoP support and you can see the list of tested DACs in this link.

There is also a report on a Chinese forum. Hope it helps.

Best Regards,
Pavel

Thanks for the reply. Look forward to giving this setup a try.

JImmy.

AP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi all,
> The Vanity103HD module now has an optional
> firmware with selectable SACD playback in DoP
> mode.

How is it selectable ? Setting the player to the DSD mode in the SACD Output in Audio Format Setup ?

Thanks.

And enabling the DoP output format by setting the switch 5 to ON.

REDVISION Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How is it selectable ? Setting the player to the
> DSD mode in the SACD Output in Audio Format Setup
> ?

I recently acquired an Oppo with the DoP Vanity model installed and also picked up a streamer (EverSolo DMP-A6) with a DAC onboard that accepts DoP via coax and plays DSD.

Sure enough when I play the Vanity in DoP mode, the A6 displays DSD 64 and sounds very nice for a spell until a blast of white noise/loud static overwhelms the music for a few seconds before it disappears as suddenly as it comes on (actually when it goes away it sort of fades out at the end). Music continues to play behind the few seconds of noise during those noise spells, which occur about once or twice per track on average.

One time out of curiosity I paused the play of the Oppo when one of those pulses of static hit. The music stopped but the noise blast did its regular few seconds before fading. I left the Oppo in the pause position to see if the noise would generate again without any active music playing, and after a minute or so the noise blast came on for a few seconds just as it does when music is actively playing.

Anyway, I've posted this issue on a Zidoo forum (parent company of EverSolo, I think), as I suspect this is an a6 issue not a Vanity/Oppo issue, and nobody knows anything about it but that seems to be because nobody has used/tried to play DSD on the A6 via DoP. All the info I'm able to gather from a6 users regarding DoP is outputting DSD from the A6 streamer into another DAC rather than using DoP to input DSD into the A6. My standalone DAC is PCM only, so if I want to listen to unconverted DSD, the DAC inside the A6 is currently my only option.

The only other data point I can think of for diagnostic purposes is that using the Vanity to convert DSD to 176kbs PCM first works fine on the A6 without any intermittent noise blast interruptions. And it handles 192kbs from blu-ray audio fine, as well, so it doesn't appear to be a high resolution issue by itself.

Could it be the A6 uses a different DoP protocol? Is that even a thing? Could the jitter settings on the Vanity possibly affect it? I haven't experimented with changing them yet to see.

Ok, any thoughts/suggestions are appreciated.

Many thanks,
Michael

Hi Michael,
This is very interesting observation and to me it looks like it is more likely coming from the Vanity rather than the A6. The reason behind that is if there was any corruption of data on the A6 side, it would not stay in the DSD/DoP mode. Your description of the issue is fairly detailed and very useful. I still might have an engineering sample card available so I can give it a go and try the card with one of the rather modern DACs based on ESS9038, which were not in existence at the time the Vanity103 was in production.
If we are able to reproduce the issue it should be possible to fix it with a firmware update. Please feel free to share any further details you think might be useful for us to replicate it.
Thank you.
Pavel

Hi Pavel,

Wow, thank you so much for looking into this issue for me! Let me know if there might be any scenarios or experiments I can run on my end that might help you diagnose the issue.
Graz!

Hi Michael,
No problem, we stand behind our products no matter how old. May I kindly ask you to PM me any observations such as how often it happens, if it shows up every time with a regular pattern or of it is more random. Also, does it happen with all DSD material such as SACD discs and DSF files or just one specific format? Simply any information that would help us to replicate it on our side.
Many thanks.
Pavel