Sony ... announces DSD capable hardware

[JJJ]

Are you all saying that converting everything to DSD is the way to go?

 

No. Converting existing LPCM to DSD yields nothing.

[JJJ]

Hmm...Yawn.

 

Player...boring. Can build better.

 

Content...same old garbage.

[JJJ]

Actually - it depends upon the DAC you sending it to. If the DAC supports DSD natively the sonic difference can be - astounding. YMMV and TANSTAAFL.

 

-Paul

 

That just means that particular DAC is crap at LPCM.

[JJJ]

Perhaps, but what is more significant than the actual hardware is that they are from Sony who have the potential of pushing High Res recordings via their record lables.

 

Eloise

 

When / if that happens then that may well be news. The above isn't. Back to sleep people.

[JJJ]

I don't believe you can start with LPCM, convert it to DSD and expect better except in the case that your chosen DAC is better at handling DSD and somehow deficient in its handling of LPCM. The conversion process can't create new content. The poster was asking if converting everything to DSD was the way to go.

[JJJ]

You're effectively arguing that LPCM still poses insurmountable structural hurdles or challenges that DSD doesn't. I guess that's a question for someone like the engineers at Theta Digital as a leading manufacturer of LPCM DACs. Could they achieve better quality were they to be processing DSD rather than LPCM? I suspect not. In any event, I wouldn't be rushing out to convert all my LPCM files to DSD...

[JJJ]

If you would have stated, in this thread, "I have heard x DSD DAC compared with y DAC for a time, but it didn't do anything for me because of a, b c, " then we have a discussion.

 

Simply being obstinate without any positive technical/objective/subjective is contempt.

 

Please, ffs, being polite here, offer some valid reasons for your armchair attitude.

 

 

Oh, one and bit, you miss the point. This has nothing to do with one DAC versus another. Nothing exciting has been announced here on either the content or the hardware point of view. There's some cause for a twitch of excitement were Sony to get behind DSD download but there's absolutely no indication of such yet.

 

So nothing to do with being obstinate.

 

And please curb your language and remain civil. I know it requires some effort on your part.

[JJJ]

Where have Sony said anything about providing NEW mass market DSD releases ?

At this stage, I would suspect that it is wishful thinking by many. Are they also going to turn back the clock on the "Loudness War" that started around 1985 ?

What makes people believe that even HDTracks is viable long term either, without NEW high resolution releases, not just re-releases of 16/44.1 material that many of us bought >25 years ago ?

Are audiophiles going to accept more of this just because it's DSD ?

 

 

Well said. A major development on the content side might well get me excited. But then it would not have to be DSD per se. A major announcement of a download service for current (rather than nostalgic) content would be big news, whether DSD or high bit rate LPCM (in whichever "container").

 

However, the fact remains that there is not yet enough demand to make such an event economically viable at this point in time. Consumers love iPods with crap headphones. They don't care about quality nor even understand what quality can be. iTunes hasn't been successful in spite of everyone complaining about the quality; most of its millions of customers think its quality is great. We, those who like quality audio, are a minuscule section of the market for digital audio. Hell, we haven't even broken the most basic barrier of CD quality for any and every digitally released album. iTunes announcing CD quality premium service would be bigger news than this.

 

As for the "suits" driving these decisions or the loudness war etc, give me a break! They're just tailoring their product offering to what's demanded/preferred by the consumer.

[JJJ]

Hold your breath and start counting...

 

We're right alongside you! (Just not holding our breath)

[JJJ]

... as it sits at the moment the masses will ignore it

 

The masses are ignoring 44.1kHz/16 bit CD let alone high-res.

 

BTW I would bet that Apple would love to be able to offer CD quality and that it's the record (and distribution) companies putting the brakes on this not Apple

[JJJ]

"Please show me where 90% of the top selling music is available at CD res, other than on a CD."

 

Exactly the point. Apart from a tiny percentage of the market (less than 1%?) the market for downloaded music is 256kbps. If you are part of the rapidly declining market for quality 44.1kHz / 16 bit recordings you buy the CD or scrape around for has-been re-releases of stuff that helps you reminisce about days gone by.

 

You have to take account of all the vested interests and contracts. Record companies and various players in audio distribution still have a lot invested in the conventional CD (and vinyl for that matter). They're not about to cede control and profits to the likes of Apple. So things will take time to change. This Sony announcement doesn't change anything.

 

Only a trivial, ignorable fraction of people buying music even know what DSD is. A small fraction of those have the ability to play a DSD download. Relatively few people will pay a premium for DSD (as was the case with SACD) even if they can play them on an iPhone or iPad (and why would you bother). You're just not that important for the record companies or musicians.

[JJJ]

Some statistics may well be of interest. In the UK, album sales are crashing. From 133.6m in 2008 to 100.5m in 2012. Of these, digital downloads have increased threefold over this period from 10.3m in 2008 to 30.5m in 2012. The good news is that almost 1 in 7 albums are still sold as CDs. The bad news is that the number sold is almost half what it was in 2008. Album sales in CD format fell 19% last year.

 

Where sales have blossomed is in singles. Up 6% in 2012 and 99.6% were digital downloads.

 

So (1) there's a massive shift by consumers to simply buying the tracks they like, (2) low-res digital downloads suit the vast majority of consumers buying individual tracks (otherwise their buying behaviour would be different) and a rapidly increasing proportion of those buying albums, (3) those that buy CDs because they need the CD format or, and likely fewer people, because they desire at least CD quality are in rapid decline albeit they continue to be the most important market for album sales.

[JJJ]

The key is for Sony to convince Apple to sell files for their hardware. Apple will probably resist until they can sell hardware that takes advantage of it too.

 

-Paul

 

Again, you miss the point. The key is to convince Sony to abandon it's entire physical disk distribution system and accelerate the takeup of digital downloads. Apple doesn't need convincing. Now, how would musicians feel if all they sold were singles and very few albums?

[JJJ]

Were I a shareholder of Sony I'd be glad you're not CEO.

 

As for how much the musician gets, don't give up your day job and start playing guitar for money! :-)

[JJJ]

 

The CEO of Sony does not care about much save profit- they see DSD as a way to make more money is all.

 

Paul

 

He's there for that reason, yes. They're not a charity.

[JJJ]

We have "unlimited" cellular data usage, which means after 3 gigs AT&T will throttle the connection,

 

For now you do. One of the biggest mistakes made by the US "cellular" industry...

[JJJ]

Much more interesting:

 

Universal Music launches High Fidelity Pure Audio discs, uncompressed albums on Blu-ray - Pocket-lint