Official Classe SSP-800 thread. - Page 53

What are the known bugs, if any, in this unit?

I envy you guys. It looks like my SSP800 is at least another 2 weeks away, if that!
Tom says they received an exceptional amount of orders at the end of Sept, just about the time I placed mine. I guess most tried to beat the 1K increase in price.
Oh well, I guess I have to live thru you guys some more for the time being.

I understand completely, and feel the same about my communications with them.


Pretty much. The quote does clarify the matter further for me in that they merely "think they can get a better overall result without it" so the question will have to remain open. Not a big issue. Just came up as an alternative to clocking thru at 192 kHz, which is an even less interesting objective to me.


Makes sense. I was sure they didn't waste their valuable time snooping around here. We'll tell them what they need to know...

I have never been able to get the subwoofer to work when playing a 5.1 SACD. I get 5.0 only. I am using a Marantz SACD player and have the LFE enabled on the player . On the 800 I have it set multi Bypass and the sub enabled. Everything works for all my other sources but no bass for 5.1 SACD using the analog inputs. When I use the Marantz noise sequencer I get no bass noise all other speakers work fine. I checked the wiring all is OK I am at a lost any ideas would be appreciated.

Are you getting bass (sub output) with movies? Do you use a different configuration for your sacd input? Multichannel sacd works fine for me but I'm using hdmi.

Take any of the other analog signals from the player (set to full range in this case), one you've heard working, and stick it into the Sub input jack (beneath the Ctr input) of the 7.1 cluster. This will make sure you that a) you actually have signal driving the input, and b) that you are driving the sub input jack and not some other like Rb.

If still no sound, I'm out of ideas. That exercise works on my unit with an iPod as a source. No special settings.

I've done that a couple of times. The surround back input is labeled "sb" and I thought that was short for "sub". Nope.

Thanks, I get sub output from all other sources at all times. I have the sub output connected underneath the CTR which is the center channel. I will try a new cable. I like the idea to plug another channel into the classe sub out put which would tell me which one is the problem classe or SACD player. The Marantz instrcutions are the worse.

I was wondering if Classe SSP-800 owners have compared the iPod +wadia i170 vs Apple TV (digital out)

Which one sounds better, a friend of mine just bought the SSP-800 and is wondering if he should buy the wadia?

I have the Wadia 170 connected to the Classe SSP-800. I don't have a Apple TV but I do have a Linksys Windows Media extender and to me the Wadia sounds much better. Although the Media Extender sounds fine and it's much more convenient. With the Wadia I have to generate a playlist or walk up to the Wadia and select the songs I want. I think it's silly they don't allow the video to pass through to the display via the component outputs.

If you have any of the same recordings on the iPod as on CD, how would you characterize the sonic difference?

The Wadia brochure talks about video. Is it that video doesn't work, or the menus are not able to be displayed?

I use a Mac Mini as a music server, feeding the 800 with the digital out. I heavily researched using a computer/ mac as a music server before taking the plunge. The Apple TV (ATV) and the Wadia are capable of the same "bit perfect" output, but there are some conditions. There are some potential configuration issues with running iTunes on a PC (vs a Mac), that have been reported to degrade sound quality. So if your friend will be streaming from a PC to the ATV, he may have some research to do to optimize the signal being sent to the ATV. Search for "bit perfect audio itunes on Windows". I don't know all of the detail, but it involves getting around the "Kmixer" in Windows (the Windows audio mixing program).

If you are streaming iTunes from a Mac running OSX operating system to the ATV, getting bit perfect ouput is pretty much plug and play as the two have been optimized to work with one another.

To summarize:

* iTunes on Mac + ATV = bit perfect output

* iPod + Wadia dock = bit perfect output

* iTunes on Windows PC + ATV = work needed for bit perfect output

The component out is used to watch tv shows purchased on itunes via your ipod but it won't output the ipod display, which would be a great feature. Not that walking up to select songs or generating a playlist is difficult. I guess I'm just lazy.

As for sound, you know it may just be a preference. I hate it when reviewers say this since I don't know what it exactly means, but it sounds less digital to me. For me that means, less hardness, the sound is seems smoother without a loss of resolution. I feel the same way when comparing the Wadia via music played over the Oppo BD 83 via HDMI. Can't explain from a technical prospective why.

Hey chjo -

Is that with the Oppo being used as a transport (digital out), or analog out?

He wrote "Oppo via HDMI" so I assume he's comparing digital out to the Wadia. If that's the case, I guess he prefers the Wadia dac over the Classe.

Thanks.


If what you're saying is it sounds equal or better than a CD, that's great! I've got to find a way to stop jockying discs. I like the Squeezbox remote, as far as I can tell from the website.

you should give the Sonos a shot too. I have one, and I use my iphone/itouch as the remote. works great and my whole catalog is at my fingertips.

Ha, I missed the mention of HDMI.

I think he's using the digital out of the Wadia, so he would still be using the DACs in the 800. HDMI has shown to have much higher jitter levels than optical or coaxial digital, but A) the 800 reclocks the HDMI signal to greatly reduce the jitter, and B) the audibility of jitter is controversial.

I heard little to no difference between the digital out on the Mac Mini and the digital out from a Classe reference CD player. If anything, I think liked the sound of the Mac slightly better. But the difference (if any) was so small that it could have been my imagination. At worst, they sound the same.

If that's the case, he shouldn't hear a difference. Seems strange he does hear a difference though. Chris - are you using optical out from the Wadia? My I guess is you're not as that defeats the purpose of using a high-end ipod doc like the Wadia.

Actually as Tim mentioned the benefit of the Wadia is the ability to bypass the dacs in the ipod and in my case use the SSP-800 which is fantastic.

Hi Tony,

I am using the Optical out. The ipod doc is actually a 300 dollar dock (which is still expensive) but is not like the other Wadia pieces that cost much much more. The primary benefit is to bypass the Ipods internal dacs and use the Classe dac.

Actually, the benefit of the Wadia is to use the dacs in the Wadia. There's less expensive solutions if you just need to bitsteam your ipod to the Classe.

I stand corrected. After reading about it, I guess that Wadia device is designed to make your ipod a transport. If that's the case, you shouldn't hear a difference between the Wadia, ATV or Oppo. Unless it's HDMI vs Optical?

To my ears it sounds at least as good as CD. I think for me the Classe makes whatever source I connect to it sound so good it makes spending a lot on the source difficult to justify. I have found that I prefer the optical connect for 2 channel music playback, whether it's the media extender or cd player. Not that HDMI sounds bad at all. It sounds clear, but this little bit of

I was convinced I can get a huge gain in sound by finding a source to replace the wadia so I tried the weiss dac2 and perfectwave dac. I tried both serving as dac and preamp as well as connecting them via the classe analog in. I thought maybe the Weiss Dac2 and Perfectwave Dac had some advantages in some areas but the differences were so small I ended up sticking to the Wadia. That said, I am looking for a solution like a Mac Mini, Logitech transporter, or the Perfectwave DAC once they come up with the bridge. I still have to check out Tims setup to see how he has his Mac Mini setup.

Yeah most of the differences were between HDMI and Optical. However, I do find that I can hear small differences between sources when using optical. I have no idea why. It could be in my imagination. Most of my impressions are from living with the sources over a prolonged period of time. With 2 babies and law school, no time for any dbt's (though I think I might be one of those people that would enjoy it.

So Tony, how do you like the Classe for movie playback?

Incredible! Best decision I ever made. Simply love it for both music and movies. I still need to spend some time dialing in my subs but I'm getting there. I need to spend more time with REW and take advantage of the SSP800 EQ.

Yes, the Sonos also looks attractive. Can it access a networked media vault so I can leave the main computer turned off?

Pretty simple really.

Mac Mini audio > SSP via optical
Mac Mini video > SSP via DVI to HDMI cable
SSP > TV via HDMI
750GB Hard Drive (music files only) > Mac Mini via fire wire
2nd 750GB HD > 1st HD via fire wire (used as back-up)
Logitech DiNivo mini bluetooth keyboard for control

The only hurdle I ran into with my previous TV was dealing with the overscan of the TV cropping off the sides of the Mac video output. I found a somewhat complicated fix for that, but my new Kuro has a "no pixel cropping" picture mode. You could also run the mac to a PC input on your tv to keep things simple.

What was your previous prepro again? And what sort of differences do you hear between it and the 800? Just interested in hearing more about your experience.

Does the mac mini connected through the SSP-800 every have any problems locking on for video. I had a PC based setup with one of my previous pre/pro's (Integra 9.9) but had problems with a consistent connection. I did have the older LCOS Sony XBR TV's. Pioneer Kuro! I am jealous.