There are sites that offer DSD downloads - and other music downloads - for more than the price of an SACD. And others that offer them at a very reasonable price.
A good comparison is the difference in price between the same album in Stereo and Surround DSD on the Primephonic ($49.98) and NativeDSD ($25.61) web sites in Stereophile magazine.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/primephonics-hi-rez-classical-downloads
On playing DSF files, DSF64 files work fine on over 500 DACs and Players including the Oppo 103 and 105 disc players.
So it's not that specialized.
There are sites that offer DSD Downloads in .ISO image format, like Pentatone, which also operates the Primephonic download site for listeners who prefer their downloads in a file by file format.
There are free apps that convert ISOs to DSF files. Even so, Pentatone received many complaints when launching their download feature for only offering DSF files as ISOs.
Bottom line: when it comes to music downloads, some people like ISOs but most do not.
I'll send your tech issue and beta site feedback over to the Channel Classics support folks ([email protected]) http://beta.channel.nl/general-info/contact-us/
I'm sure they will look into these issues.
DSF64 stereo files play fine all over. But playing back multichannel you need a multichannel DAC, of which the only notable consumer one is the Oppo 10x or 20x. And frankly that's a not insignificant request, to shell out to replace an Oppo 93 I'm perfectly happy with otherwise.
I remember the uproar about ISO files from Pentatone, although it only seemed to be one exceedingly grumpy individual making most of the noise. I can only say that I'm not planning on doing many multichannel DSD downloads going forward, and only offering image files would change that.
As you said, there's free apps to convert an ISO to any format you want - that's a big part of why I considered that individual's complaints completely asinine. But good luck turning DSF into an ISO.
I hope it's understood that these are meant to be helpful comments - the upshot is that I'm going to buy 4 SACDs as a result of this sale. It's just unfortunate that multichannel downloads are only offered as DSFs.