Why did Sony take SA-CD out of PS3 again?
Obviously, Sony is under strong pressure to reduce the cost of the console and SA-CD playback is simply not a function that’s essential to gameplay (unlike Blu-ray Disc playback – PS3 games are published on BD-ROM discs); it’s not even related. Did it save cost? Probably. Perhaps elimination of SA-CD allowed use of cheaper PCM DACs (Digital-to-Analog Converters) instead of DSD DACs but this is unlikely since PS3 can convert DSD to PCM in software. Also decompression of DST to DSD it can handle in software. So rather than in the ‘back end’ of the hardware, the cost reduction more likely lies in the ‘front end’, in the circuitry needed in the optical drive for dealing with SA-CD’s unique copy protection techniques. Lacking solid information about this we can only speculate here.
