Thread: Unable to hear audio from SACD discs on NEWEST 80Gb MGS4 Playstation3

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Post by Musicman148 August 22, 2008 (1 of 13)
On June 13, the day after the 80Gb Playstation 3 MGS4 package was released, I purchsed my playstation 3 at the Playstation store in the Metreon in San Francisco. Recently I bought a couple of SACD discs... one is pure SACD the other is hybrid. I cannot get audio out of either disc. I do get the track title, time line, etc on my tv screen which means the playstation realizes it has an SACD inserted..., but no audio from my receiver. I have the PS3 hooked up to my new Yamaha RX-V3800 7.1 surround receiver via HDMI 1.3 cable. The Yamaha receiver has a feature that allows you to look at what the receiver is receiving on the current input. format, bit rate, flags etc. I am able to play ps3 games, regular audio CD's Blu-ray discs and regular DVD's. The display shows PCM and the bit rate etc on every thing I play, EXCEPT SACD. When I play an SACD, the display shows all dashes and the word "analog" which is the receiver's way of saying that it isn't receiving any digital signal from the playstation ONLY during SACD playback. The console does have the SACD logo on it, as well as on the box and one of the manuals that came with the system. So it SHOULD be able to output the signal from SACD. I also verified that the playstation is set for "auto" for formatting the output... and all boxes are checked for the various sampling rates the ps3 works with... except AAC, which is for IPOD or mp3 type files. I've tried changing to another NEW hdmi 1.3 cable... and end up with exactly the same results. It appears that either the console was mislabled... or there is a defect in the Playstation 3 console itself. The Playstation, HDMI cable, and my Yamaha receiver are all HDMI 1.3 compliant. Any Ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Post by The Seventh Taylor August 22, 2008 (2 of 13)
It may have something to do with the display you've connected to the AV receiver (if any).

Try this PS3 SACD troubleshooting guide:

http://www.ps3sacd.com/faq.html#_Toc182427014

Post by Musicman148 August 22, 2008 (3 of 13)
The Seventh Taylor said:

It may have something to do with the display you've connected to the AV receiver (if any).

Try this PS3 SACD troubleshooting guide:

http://www.ps3sacd.com/faq.html#_Toc182427014

The display is the Sony KDL 46XBR4 HDTV... it is also HDMI 1.3 compliant... I have the receiver between the playstation and the television. Not daisychained. The Yamaha receiver I bought in February is their top of the line 7.1 channel surround receiver and has a GUI display that appears on the HDTV screen.

Post by bwcgrx1 August 22, 2008 (4 of 13)
You may have already done this....

According to page 93 of the RX-V3800-owners manual there is a setting "Support Audio" this should be a set to "RX-V3800". This should insure that the receiver is getting the Hi-res PCM the PS3 should be sending out.

The Onkyo TX-SR805, which I own, has a similar setting and it has helped with advanced audio playback for some individuals.

Also, from my own experience make sure the PS3 is the last device you power up. On my system the HDMI playback devices can be flaky if I turn them on before the monitor and receiver are power up.

Hope it helps

Brian.

Post by robstl August 22, 2008 (5 of 13)
Hi --

What the others have said may help; so might this. I have an Onkyo 805 receiver, and if I don't "uncheck" multichannel PCM audio formats>88.2 kHz sampling frequency on the PS3, I get silence also. I had to do this recently after a reset, so it's fresh in my memory.

To try this:
On the PS3 go to Settings>Sounds Settings>Audio Output Settings - select this

Using the directional keys, move to HDMI and click the right directional button

On the next screen it will ask whether to use auto or manual; move to _manual_ and click the right directional button

Uncheck all of the linear PCM settings>88.2 kHz (keep 88.2 checked) and save the results.


Then, try one of the SA-CDs again. We'll eventually get things sounding great, so long as your PS3 can play 'em! Let us know how you're doing...

Rob

Post by bwcgrx1 August 22, 2008 (6 of 13)
robstl said:

Hi --

What the others have said may help; so might this. I have an Onkyo 805 receiver, and if I don't "uncheck" multichannel PCM audio formats>88.2 kHz sampling frequency on the PS3, I get silence also. I had to do this recently after a reset, so it's fresh in my memory.

To try this:
On the PS3 go to Settings>Sounds Settings>Audio Output Settings - select this

Using the directional keys, move to HDMI and click the right directional button

On the next screen it will ask whether to use auto or manual; move to _manual_ and click the right directional button

Uncheck all of the linear PCM settings>88.2 kHz (keep 88.2 checked) and save the results.


Then, try one of the SA-CDs again. We'll eventually get things sounding great, so long as your PS3 can play 'em! Let us know how you're doing...

Rob

Hey robstl

That's strange, My PS3 is configured to send PCM audio via HDMI with settings greater than 88.2 kHz selected, my SR805 works fine. In fact according to the SR805 display SACD are received as 176 khz Multichannel PCM.

Anyway... not trying to hijack this thread to a PS3/SR805 one....issue at hand seems to be Musicman148's PS3/RX-V3800 issue.

Wasn't HDMI supposed to make everything easier? Well in my case it did, dramatically reduced cable clutter too, for others though it seems to be a bit of a nightmare.

Brian

Post by Lionel August 23, 2008 (7 of 13)
Hi,

As far has I remember, the 40 GB version of the PS3 in Europe has lost the ability to read SACD for cost saving reasons. Moreover, the 80GB version that should be available soon here seems to be similar to the 40GB version except for the disk size and consequently has no SACD support.

In the US, the old 80 GB version is able to read SACD through HDMI. However yours came with the recent MGS4 bundle and maybe has the same characteristic than the new European 80 GB PS3.

Regards,

Lionel

Post by Musicman148 August 23, 2008 (8 of 13)
I have tried all these things previously, except for disabling the higher sampling rates on the ps3... tried that too.... still no audio... and still no output at all being detected by my yamaha receiver ONLY when an SACD or hybrid CD is inserted in the PS3. everything else works fine. I will be returning the game console to the Sony store at the Metreon in San Francisco tomorrow, either for a refund, replacement or repair. My full time work is as a technician for AT&T, with many years of experience in digital communications technology and PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) transmission theory. I work with PCM every day. I was hoping that possibly a Sony engineer who has intimate knowledge of the newest PS3 and DSD (Digital Streaming Data) would see my post. In any case, I'll get the problem resolved tomorrow once and for all. It's possible there was a mixup on the assembly line when my unit was built. Anyway... thanks. I do appreciate your help!

Post by The Seventh Taylor August 24, 2008 (9 of 13)
Lionel said:

As far has I remember, the 40 GB version of the PS3 in Europe has lost the ability to read SACD for cost saving reasons. Moreover, the 80GB version that should be available soon here seems to be similar to the 40GB version except for the disk size and consequently has no SACD support.

In the US, the old 80 GB version is able to read SACD through HDMI. However yours came with the recent MGS4 bundle and maybe has the same characteristic than the new European 80 GB PS3.

Technically that might be true but it's unlikely, especially considering the point in time he's bought the unit.

Anyway, even the new 160GB model announced for both Europe and North America is SACD-less, so it's looking like we shouldn't expect too much from Sony Computer Entertainment anymore.

Musicman148 Yesterday 08:55 am wrote:
> I was hoping that possibly a Sony engineer who has intimate knowledge of the newest PS3 and DSD (Digital Streaming Data) would see my post.

It's possible but I've never seen any of them post here. By the way, DSD stands for Direct Stream Digital (see /faq#audio1 ) but you were close :-)

Did you try SACD playback on PS3 with the display not connected via HDMI, like suggested in above troubleshooting guide? In order to see the menus, you could let via go through analog connections.

Post by BigTony August 24, 2008 (10 of 13)
Do you get playbackly on an Audio CD?

Methinks it might be an issue between your amp and the PS3 HDMI. If the disc is recognised as SACD then it plays. When you read the title on the screen, does it say sacd 2ch, multich etc? or cd, as it can read both sacd and cd layer. The HDMI standard means that the options you select are the ones available for your system.
As an afterthought, set output to lpcm not bitrate, as the ps3 converts DSD to pcm for you.

BT

PS my information was that sacd has been dropped from all models, so i'm curious to see that your ps3 console has sacd logo.

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