PlayStation 3 and DTS HD Master Audio, not all it’s Patched up to be
DTS-HD-MAA patch is forthcoming for the PlayStation 3 to decode DTS HD Master Audio soundtracks on Blu-ray discs. To many PlayStation 3 home theater enthusiasts this is the holy grail of patches. But not so fast – this patch might not be the elixir of audio bliss after all.
For anyone with a sound system a step above Home Theater in a Box, DTS HD Master Audio will offer significant gains in audio fidelity. It offers high resolution sound gift wrapped in a lossless audio codec. You can find it on many Blu-ray movie and music releases today.
The great news for PS3 owners is that soon Sony’s gaming machine will decode the audiophile codec. Specifically that means PlayStation 3 will internally decode the audio and pipe it via HDMI to your receiver in PCM form. That’s uncompressed multi-channel audio.
Your receiver has have an HDMI input and be capable of playing back multi-channel high-bit PCM audio. The new HDMI 1.3a version isn’t required for this job, receivers with older versions of HDMI are sufficient.
Many of the new receivers like Onkyo TX-SR805 have HDMI 1.3a and are capable of decoding the new lossless audio codecs internally. Letting PS3 decode for your receiver in this case constitutes a trade off in audio quality.
Due to hardware limitations Sony’s PlayStation 3 cannot bitstream DTS-HD-MA to your receiver. That is what would be required to let your receiver do the decoding. You’re left with the built-in PS3 Digital-Analog Converter (DAC) doing any decoding for you.
The decoding of a digital format is probably the largest part of what dictates the acoustic quality outside your speakers. The PS3 may have good quality DACs built-in but as a $500 gaming machine it’ll pale in comparison to the job performed by a $2000 receiver. Bitstreaming (as is offered by only a handful of upcoming dedicated Blu-ray players) is the best sound-quality option. But hey – PS3 plays games.
Note that a PS3 doesn't have multichannel analog output so if you were to use its DAC you would be stuck in stereo :-(
The best sound quality possible would be if your PS3 could bitstream the high-res audio codecs to let a high-end receiver's DACs perform the actual decoding.
Can there be any dispute of this?
Bryan Greenway of the HomeTheaterBlog.com says:
"...in the case of the PS3 the next-generation audio codec’s are decoded internally and sent out as multi-channel PCM." (linked in the article)
Multi-channel PCM simply means the decoding is finished... PS3 sends uncompressed audio in the digital domain to your receiver.
Hey, I'd be the first to admit that I'm wrong.
To challenge the article means you don't believe audio DACs contribute to acoustic quality.
You may argue DACs have no bearing on sound quality - you’d be wrong. You could argue the difference between DACs is negligible and you may have a point, especially with most consumer grade audio systems on the market.
But high-end DACs like those made by Wolfson or Burr-Brown contribute to a much better acoustic experience.
You are misunderstanding the process.
When the Playstation 3 decodes a codec to multi-channel PCM, this is a Digital-to-Digital conversion. There is only one way to perform this. Correctly or incorrectly. This is like unzipping a .zip file on your computer. The quality of the decoder doesn't really matter. They all work the same. Now, digital jitter on the HDMI output is another story beyond the scope of this discussion.
DACs do make a difference! But they perform are called Digital to Analog Converters (DAC). I'll repeat. Digital to Analog! This is when the multi-channel PCM is converted to an analog signal that your amplifier sends to the speakers.
I will admit that since further researching this issue I have to agree that there's probably no audible difference between the PS3 'unzipping' to PCM your codec vs. a multi-thousand dollar piece of high-end receiver doing same.
But I would personally feel about having my receiver perform any decoding duties, after all that is what it's made for. ;)