On the long wave of success of our digital sources based on separate units (CD-Transport, DAC) we focused our interest on the integrated sources, the declared aim is to achieve even in this area the best sonic performance at a better money for value. The experience in the design of separate units allows us to fully understand what were the most critical elements and their influence on the final result; to optimize a single unit you need to understand not only how to make the best unit itself but also how to interface it at its best.
One example is the development in 2001 of a communication interface in standard I2S; this development was born from the need to overcome some limitations related to standard interfaces allowing also to extend the transmitted frequency at 192kHz with an error time ( jitter) very low.

An integrated source can be thought in this way: a disc reading unit and a digital-to-analog conversion unit communicating via a I2S bus. Thinking the integrated unit in this simple way is possible to use of all the solutions in use on separate units to optimize each section and link then with an optimized I2S bus.

But this is only an idealized vision of an integrated Player; thinking that the only way of communication between the different sections is the bus I2S is just an illusion. In a integrated unit many different paths exists through which the separated sections can interact between them.
These problems can be minimised by optimizing of the signals path (layout) and the voltage distribution at the different sections, that being all these precautions more important as we use highest performance electronic components. In Sapphire CD Player this attention to detail is summarized by a number: 16.0 bit resolution. This Player reaches the limits of the standard CD as attested by evidence in technical tests from the high end magazine Audioreview.