Mark Waldrep and More Silliness...

[Allan F]

Mark Waldrep and John Siau are the tiresome Bobbsey twins of DSD bashing. Thankfully, this is an old piece as the horse stopped bleeding a long time ago.

[alfe]

Funny to see the guys who are cooking processors offering PCM to DSD conversion on fly, arguing about pure DSD:)

[alfe]

Funny to see the guys who are cooking processors offering PCM to DSD conversion on fly, arguing about pure DSD:)

 

Sorry for my english, meant baking not cooking:)

[Hiro]

Just wanted to remind everyone that the current DSD DACs can already accept DSD up to 24.6MHz, which gives them great SNR and super-wide bandwidth.

 

See, for example: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/t-digital-analogue-converter-8-direct-stream-digital-27935/index33.html#post554399

[plissken]

My issue with DSD is a lot of the music I have has no DSD track equivalent. It's hard for me to adopt a half measure.

[Jud]

My issue with DSD is a lot of the music I have has no DSD track equivalent. It's hard for me to adopt a half measure.

 

If you are describing PCM -> DSD conversion as a "half measure," it can in fact sound pretty terrific if the PCM mastering you are converting is good, and you use a converter (either inline or offline) with good sigma-delta modulators.

 

Edit: Or maybe you were meaning that you would have only half (or less) of your music; but with conversion you have it all, and the choice of whether to listen to the PCM or DSD version, whatever sounds best to you.

[plissken]

If you are describing PCM -> DSD conversion as a "half measure," it can in fact sound pretty terrific if the PCM mastering you are converting is good, and you use a converter (either inline or offline) with good sigma-delta modulators.

 

Edit: Or maybe you were meaning that you would have only half (or less) of your music; but with conversion you have it all, and the choice of whether to listen to the PCM or DSD version, whatever sounds best to you.

 

It's a combination of two things:

 

1. Just not enough DSD tracks in entirety. So there is the easy availability factor

 

2. If I were to re-puchase some of my collection then there would be the question of is the track mastered with DSD suites or am I simply getting a conversion.

 

3. I've found zero data, bias controlled, that leads me to believe that DSD has a sonic advantage or disadvantage over PCM I've certainly not experienced a DSD vs 24/192 same track where I readily was able to track with what encoding it was mastered in. Doesn't mean it's non-existent. Just I haven't heard it as of yet but always open to hearing it somewhere.

[Paul R]

It's a combination of two things:

 

1. Just not enough DSD tracks in entirety. So there is the easy availability factor

 

2. If I were to re-puchase some of my collection then there would be the question of is the track mastered with DSD suites or am I simply getting a conversion.

 

3. I've found zero data, bias controlled, that leads me to believe that DSD has a sonic advantage or disadvantage over PCM I've certainly not experienced a DSD vs 24/192 same track where I readily was able to track with what encoding it was mastered in. Doesn't mean it's non-existent. Just I haven't heard it as of yet but always open to hearing it somewhere.

 

I believe this is a blue* herring.

 

If for instance, you convert a Rebook file to DSD128 and listen to both - something well within your capability - you are hearing the exact same mastering portrayed in different formats. Unless you have done so and have solid results, your opinion is based only upon hearsay, not science or verifiable evidence.

 

You may or may not hear a difference, you may or may not prefer one rendition over another, and you may or may change those preferences on a recording to recording basis.

 

You can engage whatever bias controls you like to test that. Realize the results are most certainly valid, whatever test you choose to use. But, they are only valid for you.

 

-Paul

 

* Blue vice red, because there is a lot less emotional charge with blue herrings than red ones...

[Paul R]

Multi-bit is/are parallel 1-bit streams at the same bit rate, who have a mathematical relationship to one another. That allows the "x" bit wide "word" to be processed in a digital computer. Other than a several dB improvement in noise margin, there's no practical advantage of multi-bit (streams) over a single 1-bit stream to a consumer.

 

This is talking only a stereo data stream, right? Multi-channel ops multiplex different streams, right? (I could be off base there... never really looked into multi-channel DSD/PDM recordings...)

 

There's a large advantage to someone producing recordings who does not want to suffer the losses of PCM conversion in order to post process a DSD recording. With multi-bit (wide) streams the digital processing math can be applied to the original bit rate data without filtering and decimation. This is how the Sony Sonoma DSD-Wide (8 bits wide/8 streams) system operated.

 

There are a number of companies actively working on multi-bit Digital Audio Workstation software presently, which within a year should allow an alternative to PCM/DXD post processing of DSD recorded content.

 

There's no analogy to DoP, which is a serial bit packaging scheme into PCM word frames for transmission purposes. You're correct that DXD is pure 352.8KHz 24 or 32 bit PCM.

 

Thanks - I am a transmission guy, so DoP was the first thing that popped into my head, I can see where it is a different thing that what you are talking about though.

 

-Paul

[徐中銳]

Here, ponder this, using « Advanced Multi-bit Delta-Sigma Architecture, Supports DSD direct D/A conversion » Cirrus CS4398 chip—but at its latest CD6006 price point, Marantz hasn't enabled DSD nor SACD :