DSD Has Better Dynamic Rage = Misleading

[elcorso]

My very personal opinion on what I feel when listening to DSD vs PCM.

 

- DR is, of course, limited by the recording itself.

 

- But, on very hard DR peaks, when listening to DSD, I got no colapse in nothing, call you soundstage, harmonics, distortion, etc.. But yes with PCM.

 

I would call this "Dynamic Contrast", that is different from DR.

 

With my system and several DACs I own.

 

Roch

[elcorso]

45 minutes ago, mansr said:

What he fails to realise is that to calculate the dynamic range of a DSD recording, it must first be converted to PCM. That alone invalidates any conclusions of his.

 

That means there isn't any tools to measure DR from DSD directly?

 

Roch

[elcorso]

4 minutes ago, ted_b said:

The loudness wars are primarily due to major labels asking recording engineers to make their recordings louder than the next guy, so playlists will highlight them.  These major labels primarily record in PCM and use post-processing out the wazzoo.  In contrast, small boutique labels don't apply that pressure; and some of these smaller labels (especially classical, world and some jazz) record in DSD.  Therefore, many DSD recordings have good DR.  But geez, so do many PCM recordings (those that don't have the pop commercial loudness pressures).   He's measuring the wrong statistics!

 

And, when you record directly to DSD, overloading the vu meters (>0 dB) will be noticed with easy.

 

Roch

[elcorso]

11 minutes ago, mansr said:

It is mathematically meaningless to do so. With 1-bit resolution, you have by definition maximum loudness all the time. Only by filtering out the ultrasonic noise can you get a meaningful signal to analyse, and that necessarily means going to a multi-bit PCM format (although the sample rate can remain high if you wish).

 

Thanks !

 

Roch

[elcorso]

18 minutes ago, audiventory said:

 

I reduced it to 0.4 dB. Though in the settings possibly add headroom value:

 

 

The reason?

 

In the posible settings, are those minus, like in -6 dB ?

 

Thanks,

 

Roch

[elcorso]

7 hours ago, audiventory said:

 

Hi Roch,

 

-0.4 dB used for maximal amplitude using. It was accepted by number of test files (test signals and different musical ones). This headroom provide stability for known me audio stuff (that was converted since 3-rd generation of filters was released).

 

If used wide filter band mode (Settings > General > Filter mode "non-optimized wide resampling filter"), there is higher probability of break stability due overload. Especially for DSD 64.

Though I still don't got reports about break stability issue since wide mode was released.

 

If output file contains silence or constant oscillation, need to increase attenuation.

I suppose, 1 dB must cover all cases. For more fine tuning 0.1 dB may be used Main window > Levels > Output file volume slider (if it is available in used edition/configuration).

 

If you want to convert DSF files with "standard" headroom, you can set attenuator to -6 dB.

 

Best regards,

Yuri

 

P.S. Besides amplitude limitation, other efforts for modulator-stability improving are used in AuI ConverteR.

 

 

 

Many thanks Yuri for the detailed explanation !

 

Best,

 

Roch