DSD: The Good, The Bad & The Test 

In fact it doesn't make any sense. In terms or recording, playback environment is important but a separate problem, you must simply do the best you can with the best equipment. Analog tape is by far the most engaging but native DSD has its emotion. Let's just leave aside conversions and enjoy the original recording format. Can't go wrong!

These analog/turntables aficionados like those Apollo 13 astronauts "Houston we have a problem" have a problem!!!!!! Thanks MoFi for exposing the grift.

You Missy be deaf because dsd clearly sound different to me. Just like vinyl sounds different. Your comment is like one from people who actually never heard it. Same people that say cds sound better than vinyl. You know they actually don’t have a high quality vinyl player with high quality speakers.

​@@vitorfernandes651Whatever makes you happy man. Its a minute "improvement". Try a Nul Test sometime with DSD Vs. even a 48K 24bit PCM source, much less higher resolutions. Not much to see there. But if it make you feel like you can hear music better than other people can, salut.

But, what about the Evel Sony being involved? I'd actually like to know, as most of my stuff is Sony. I've usually been fairly happy with the quality of their products, although, it does seem that they have been playing to the low end, even though they have always had a range of products from cheap to crazy expensive. at least they have some low end stuff for those of us who are poor.

Sorry, what's wrong with the guys who gave us the CD and Blu-ray?

@@andesneko nothing.

DSD was pioneered by Philips and Sony with the introduction of SACD, which uses single rate DSD

@@sammcrae8892 DSD that is not SACD does not require Sony equipment or chip to be played.

Thank YOU Neil!

I agree, high quality DSD recordings are amazing. Thanks for sharing the Red Rose Samples info!

@@anadialog I started looking around on the web a few days ago to see if I could find another copy with no luck. I guess Mark did not make the t many copies. He was selling them out of his store. Red Rose equipment was pretty cool though. I’m not sure who the designer of his electronics was under the Red Rose brand and the speakers as well. The CD player was a Sony SACD obviously. We spent about 20 minutes until he had another listening appointment.

PS AUDIO DSD recordings, unfortunately has lots of sampleing rate noise distortions in the signal, so much for the non distortion dsd signal. Makes me laugh, the supposed higher quality of PS AUDIO recordings is inferior to standard red book cd quality.

@@ianjohnhorwood2605 oops, that’s an interesting tidbit. I listen to Paul McGowan answer letters when I see the subject is DSD. I had no clue that the quality is not as good as PCM. That sounds like a disaster for his Dad business.

Mr Laflamme thank you for your comment and for your work. Your analog transfers are amazing! 2xHD is among the best out there in doing this IMHO. Yes, I know of your tapes. Hope to get one soon!

Bought couple from 2xhd great work

@@scoobyrex247 Thank you so much ! René

True, and there is literally no advantage to DSD. Just let it die.

Room correction dsp doesn't fix the sound of your room. Get proper room treatment instead. But you already know that...

@@ABC-rh7zc Let's kill PCM instead please. There's literally no advantage to PCM

@@limp6986 Um... DSP crossovers, digital mixing, digital EQ, etc. Did you even watch the video?

@@limp6986 I don't believe in idealistic and absolutist statements like the one you've made. Reality is more relative as Einstein would argue. I used to be more of a purist in my younger audiophile days. However with time and experience I've leaned to become more pragmatic and base my decisions on a more scientific and evidence based approach. I'll start by addressing your second statement, i.e. your recommendation regarding room treatments. While I agree with you that proper room treatments should always be the first step, it's not always practical or even possible in every situation. Not everyone has the luxury of having a dedicated audio listening room large enough to accommodate room treatments. Think of a lot of places in Europe or Asia where appartments can be fairly small and even in North America in certain urban centers. I'll take as an example my own appartment. The only even remotely adequate room at my disposal is the living room; it's small at 13 x13 x 8 feet (4 x 4 x 2,4 meters). The right side is mostly flanked by two windows and a door leading to the balcony leaving no room for any treatment except for corner bass traps. The left wall is occupied by a couple of bookcases that contain my CD and Blu-ray collections while the front corner harbors my audio gear rack and the back corner is the entrance to the room making even the placement of corner bass traps allong that wall impossible. The only walls left for possible treatments are the front and back walls plus the ceiling. And I know of many people in similar situations. Furthermore, good luck with your second half letting you turn her living room into a recording studio. On top of that, add my 65-inch TV with a basic 5.1 multi-channel speaker setup, no way to even accommodate a 7.1 setup although I'd like to add a second subwoofer in the future. I hope you get the picture by now. So yes, as you stated, I know that proper room treatment is the ideal first step but as I hope you may have come to realize, it's not always practical or possible in every situation. Now I'll address your first statement that room correction DSP doesn't fix the sound of one's room. There are many acousticians with PhDs that develop digital room correction (DRC) technologies, e.g. Acourate, Audiolense, Audyssey, Anthem ARC, Dirac Research, DEQX and Trinnov to name a few, that would strongly disagree with your opinion and that have performed many studies published in audio journals such as the AES. Many professional acousticians also use parametric EQ on top of room treatments to help reduce room standing waves even further. Realistically, no technology whether room treatments, DRC or DSP EQ can completely fix the sound of a room but from experience, I know that even DRC on its own can make a dramatic improvement in reducing standing waves and opening up the sound for the better.

Indeed. DSD been created to make artifical linearity of analog sound wave. With that in mind that insane sample rates / second at least trying to create that. That is why superior to PCM, at least in my opinion. Anadialog is very right when his pointing that out making a record in native DSD, then convert it to pcm is a non-sense step. Logically obvious. You record something in pcm, then convert to mp3, then back to pcm? :) Funny movement even from studios and I think that is just a stupid and lazy explanation instead of using pure DSD all over the recording line. Better to record everything in full analog, master and mix in analog, and then, only after that you can record it purely to a user ready DSD. Sounds simple, but for cost cut, etc. they just cheat, most of the time. Every kind of conversion leads to degradation in sonic quality, upsampling is also part of stupidity in audio. You CAN NOT get any better from your source doesn't matter where and how you convert it. Still can't believe how over their 20's (think so) people can even think about it. One more word for Anadialog. I am 100% with you with the certification theme, how can we trust or believe what we paying for? Mostly no explanation how did they sourced their files, which is IMO really frustrating and dishonest with all the consumers.

The DSD has got a fine DB rate and is not compressed as the Flac (not the codec) probably using 16 bit for 44kHz can be. If you turned down the level of the DSD you cannot hear anything but i have to get the cue sheet for instance made out of Foobar to see the comparaison between the level of compression so that the dynamic is evacuated out of the range of that possibility. But then the phenomenon is rather normal due to the DB and i wondered how did you miss that point.

I Edit: this the same record then, a compression was applied on both maybe 10 if there is a large portion of music that differs, normally if that portion of dynamic is low, you can be sure to find a louder DSD too but on a different level due to the excellence of the DB, you should feel a form of noisy background. Is the flac and the DSD compressed equally ? DR please.

Thanks!

Thank you Sam!

I have both the BluRay and SACD [MoFi] versions of Breakfast in America and SACD version is so much better. I totally agree except for the liner notes.

😂

It'll happen soon enough.

Sadly it comes to MQA streaming compression...

Same here!

R2R quad tapes from 1970s on SACD (Pentatone) sound wonderful. My favourite is Mozart horn concertos (Alan Civil ASMF Marriner)

I ditched all my R2R tapes. They were a huge pain in the arse. The audio was an issue at times when the tape would stick passing through the heads. It was an inconvenient and overrated format. So glad I free of it. I love all the Digital formats and Vinyl.

Great machine, congrats!

Your T+A DAC is a excellent DAC. However, don't take the hook, line and sinker from T+A. Just about any good DAC chips produced in the last 15 years or so by companies like AKM, Analog Devices, Cirrus, TI Burr Brown and ESS Technology can decode DSD data streams natively inside the DAC chip despite the marketing claims made by T+A Elektroakustik.

Dynamic range is not about the hights of high tones and low of low sounds, its difference between the quietest and the loudest in the track and its measured in db

PDM and PCM are entirely equivalent; SACDs contain recordings that could be put on ordinary CDs and sound exactly the same.

only on live concert videos

I like DXD better

@@mckidar DXD is just PCM.

same here

DSD 1024/128BIT

@@pracheerdeka6737 Cursed comment

Thanks Charles!

Cool! Thanks for sharing that!

Foobar doesn’t do spectrogram in DSD mode, it’s not capable of that.

Obviously recording, mixing and mastering are more important. Its not an opinion, its a fact. We are focusing on what WE can do to make that work better sounding. For the test I am waiting till the end of the survey.

That "old analog stuff" is gold, and sounds outstanding and natural!

Thank you Socrates, stay safe too!

@@crapmalls Essentially yes. All FPGA DACs like the Chord dave employ the Sigma Delta format which is the basis for how DSD works. You can google it for more info.

Thank YOU!

Anthony Mak what do I need for my pc to play DSD?

@@namichidigitalaudio Foobar2000 with SACD plugin or AIMP player.

@@edfort5704 no direct dsd cards? my motorola droid 4 plays dsd128 but if i cat /proc/asound/card0/hw_params it shows pcm 16bit 44.1kHz So I therefore ask what sense does it make to play dsd if it gets converted to pcm? Is it worth the file size? I can hear more dynamic range

@@Suppboio I don't know for sure how the PC software works, but dsd stuff sounds amazing compared to anything else I've ever heard from an audio recording/storage/playback medium. Try it...and don't stop at the first file you hear if you're not impressed at first hear. But I think you will be....I definitely was.

@@edfort5704 i tried dsd128 on my pc on windows. Most is dsd64. It sounds good.

Great, thanks!

Interesting!

I think it pertains to your excellent "Sound beyond 20 kHz" video. The ultrasonic tone may create a "dysharmonic" effect that is very unpleasant to the listener. The anecdote may be in this YT video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7u9OKPL1ezA.html starting at the second harmonic distortion generator discussion. Also, interesting topic. In phase 2nd harmonic creates detail and presence. Out of phase 2nd harmonic creates an illusion of spaciousness and increased soundstage.

Hi William I felt compelled to comment on your purchase of the PS Audio Transport and DirectStream DAC, as I've just done the same thing. Well, I actually placed the order here in New Zealand back in mid October then paid for them at the end of the month (they're the most expensive items of Hi-Fi equipment I've ever bought, surpassing what I paid for my Acoustat SPECTRA 6600 electrostatics last century) and then the company has had to manufacture them (made to order) and I was told they were shipped last Thursday (9 Dec). I hope I'll receive them by Christmas but I think it will be tight. Glad to read that you're enjoying yours so much. I'm certainly looking forward to hooking mine up (like you I'm going to use the I²S HDMI cable 5o connect the two units). John Marchington

​@@johnmarchington3146so how does it sound?

How are you getting your DSD signal through your Aries ll. There's no instruction as to which buttons I should engage........like the instruction for high pass filtering etc.....

How cool!!!!! You really got a wide picture now. I wasn't expecting that. Very interesting!

Interesting, I didn't know that! I have some DSD recordings from Octave records...I must admit that I wasn't impressed by them...

We didn't have cost efficient processing chips capable of operation in megahertz frequencies back then.

Why, standard redbook 16bit/44.1khz is more than enough for human hearing. DSD and high sample rate audio usually just sounds better because the original recording or remaster was done with high fidelity in mind. DSD almost always starts out as PCM for mastering and then converted to DSD. SACD was a BS move by Sony for better copyright protection and to resell their audio catalog all over again and double dip you wallet.

@@iowaudioreviews 5.1 channel playback is pretty fun though

cd often sounds better

what type of PCM 16 bit. 20 bit 24 bit or maybe even DXD with 352.8 kHz. And without Flac or alac or other type of compressed file

I can tell you that the DTS-HD master also sounds good it can sound like a really realistic wooden door creaking . I’m talking about movies now

You may be interested in this comparison I made: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xtIdGDk4g0M.html

When native, IMO it is more evident and in most cases superior to high-res PCM...but not always...

@@anadialog I still have to give it a proper listen with a DSD compatible device in my stereo system! I may change my mind!

Thanks Nick! You too!

Linn SACD's are superb! (though recorded in PCM)

Thanks for your feedback, very few did that! For me it's important to read your impressions!

The initial trasfer...then starts the remix, or mastering in PCM in most cases...

What is also fun is that adc and dac are delta sigma 1,3... Bits oversample

Thx!!

Well the dedicated invention for that is DAT! Digital Audio Tape. If you get a DAT recorder you just need to feed it an analog signal. Otherwise you can get a analog to digital interface for conversion, like those famous focusright interfaces, and then record that on any kind of tape, clearly when recording traditionallyike cassettes or VHS the signal will be converted back to analog. If your goal is to record digital DATA then you will need a DAT recorder as explained above or a computer for other types of tape. There are tutorials online to do so. DAT and VHS are the best solution IMO.

@@anadialog Analog (or analog-like) sound is actually the end goal, I’m mostly just trying to find a work around for not being able to record the audio while the tape is moving in discrete steps. Sorry for the confusion, I didn’t know how to explain it correctly yesterday, and I probably still don’t. See the video on Time Lapse VCRs by Technology Connections to see what I mean by discrete steps. In the intended application, runtime is more important than audio fidelity, but even poor quality audio would be better than no audio :v

That is why I record my DSD and other high-res albums on top notch quality cassettes!

The future ? The industry abandoned alternative 'hi-res' formats years ago - they simply didnt sell. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Definition_Compatible_Digital en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Resolution_Compact_Disc Given that few consumers even buy CDs any more, its all a bit moot but if you are serious about DSD you need to be investing in Roon and the PC or Mac capable of upsampling PCM to DSD on the fly.

@@arthurwatts1680 Anyway, the future always leads to the best triumph, right? Or come close ... I believe in a larger sampling which respects more the natural curve of the sounds. The DSD has proven that it does it better than anything. The market, even if streaming gets the ball rolling, will come. There is no reason now with the extensive storage as it is now that we should not come to it. Your links are explanations of the formats, not a vision, a projection of what will come. I listen to Diana Krall in DSD (Turn up the quiet) and I have no doubt that anyone who listens to it in DSD will be convinced that this is the format of the future.

for recording orchestra maybe, but in practical, most studio are maxed out at 192khz pcm and even at that it's rare to see one. even my own music production I only max at 96khz because of how hard our current CPU processors just cant handle these high sampling rate. not to mention when you turn on the supersample it's gonna be a hell of buffer to push with DACs...

Thank YOU!

Yes, that is a true problem. I keep my files in the cloud...but then you have to download them to listen to them...not practical! I wish they made SACD with DSD256 resolution.

What cloud service do you use and how much storage space do you have on your plan? It must be pretty expensive to maintain a decent sized library of DSD files in the cloud.

Dropbox but I have only a few tracks...I'm an analog and tactile guy, remember? ;-)

With the ever-falling cost, and ever increasing storage, of hard drives nowadays, file sizes shouldn’t be an issue

@@steviemusic1 I’m using M2 Thunderbolt 3 drives which are not cheap. An 8GB drive costs $1400. And one song in DSD256 is around one gigabyte in file size which is insanely big even if you had a very large platter based drive array. One FLAC 24bit 96khertz song at 10 minutes is around 32MB while the same song in DSD 256 is around 900MB.

I agree. It would be great to have high resolution SACD or a new format with high sampling dsd.

If we leave it to pcm, yes, it can influence the quality...in fact a lot of people record in 88.2khz...dsd fortunately, when native is more and more recorded in 256