For Physical Media and Files: PS Audio's PerfectWave SACD

by The Audio Beat | April 8, 2021

S Audio's new PerfectWave SACD transport ($6499), which replaces the company's PerfectWave transport, is an advanced digital source component that addresses a pair of ways many audiophiles play their digital music today. The PerfectWave SACD is a full-function CD and SACD transport, and a hub for playing digital files from USB sticks. In both respects, the PerfectWave SACD aims at sending digital data to a connected digital-to-audio converter with utmost purity and fidelity.

Among the PerfectWave SACD's technical features is PS Audio’s proprietary Digital Lens technology, which electrically isolates the mechanical transport/laser mechanism from the digital output stage via a combination of buffered memory and FPGA (field-programmable gate array) digital processing. It also uses PS Audio's galvanically isolated output stage, which feeds the output of the PerfectWave SACD's all-new drive mechanism to the Digital Lens circuitry, leading to "total physical and electrical isolation [that] completely eliminates noise or ground contamination." Of great interest to those with large SACD collections is the PerfectWave SACD's ability to play the raw DSD layer of an SACD with a compatible PS Audio DAC, providing "exactly the same audio heard by the mastering engineers in the studio."

Connectivity is abundant, including I2S for PCM and DSD (raw), coaxial RCA and BNC for PCM and DoP (use both BNC outputs for double-rate DoP), and balanced XLR (use both outputs for double-rate DoP). The PerfectWave SACD reads a wide array of digital discs -- SACD, CD, CD-R, CD-RW and DVD-R formats (the latter for audio data files only) -- and handles a range of digital file formats, including the various PCM and DSD (raw) formats, DoP and double-rate DoP. Finally, the transport has plug-and-play operation with no configuration required, and its Ethernet and WiFi connectivity enable online firmware updates.