Philips Chip: SACD + DVD?

The affordable universal disc player may yet become a reality—if Royal Philips Electronics has anything to do with it.

On March 11, the Dutch electronics giant introduced the SAA7893HL, an integrated circuit chip that could help bring Super Audio CD (SACD) to the mass market. "The SAA7893HL chip will allow DVD makers to easily integrate SACD into their DVD-Video players at costs which will open the large volume market, enabling consumers to experience sound quality superior to that of a CD from the comfort of their living rooms," stated the official announcement.

Samples of the chip are available now. The SAA7893HL will sell for approximately $10 each in batches of 10,000, once production begins in earnest in the first quarter, which for Philips, as for most electronics companies, begins April 1. Philips hopes to induce manufacturers to adopt its combination chip and software for the inclusion of SACD in the next generation of DVD players.

Philips is co-developer of the SACD with longtime partner Sony Corporation. With its natural harmonics and vanishingly low audioband noise floor, the format is believed by many engineers and audiophiles to offer the best playback quality of any technology yet developed. "As a result of breakthroughs in the field of audio coding, Super Audio CD is now accepted as the highest possible audio quality, both in the field of stereo as well as in multichannel," commented Jeroen Keunen, regional market segment manager of consumer and multimedia with Philips in Asia Pacific. "Large-volume player manufacturers have announced that they are developing and shipping SACD DVD-Video players. With the SAA7893HL, SACD will become a cost-efficient 'must-have' feature in the DVD-Video market and will bring SACD possibilities to the end-consumer."

The SAA7893HL includes a multichannel "bass management system" with volume control and delay functions that will make it a natural fit in home theater systems. The new chip "can support many different DVD platforms because of the integrated multiple loader and host interfaces . . . . It enables DVD-player manufacturers to introduce players that can support six-channel SACD and DVD playback." All Philips hardware and software interfaces are optimized for easy design-in into various DVD systems, the announcement said.

In other SACD news, Pioneer has introduced a new player that doesn't convert the SACD direct stream digital (DSD) signal to pulse code modulation (PCM) before conversion to analog. The Elite 47A, which sells for $1200, uses a Cirrus Logic DAC/decoding chipset that processes both SACD and DVD-Audio signals independently in the digital domain. PCM conversion in SACD players has been a topic of some concern among audio insiders; PCM artifacts and noise are believed by some to cause the fatigue and restlessness experienced by some when listening to CDs. In the 47A, the DSD signal is "sent through the DAC without modification," according to Pioneer DVD marketing manager Gary Bauhard. High-rez on the cheap: Apex Digital reportedly offers a $300 entry-level combination player that also avoids down-conversion to PCM.

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