No worries Nikhil, any discussion pertaining to dsd or its merits/demerits vs other formats is fine here as long as reference point is DSD.
Cheers,
Sid
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Dsd
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No worries Nikhil, any discussion pertaining to dsd or its merits/demerits vs other formats is fine here as long as reference point is DSD.
Cheers,
Sid
Another point I remember from my past experience with SACD, is its performance against The JVC mastering process, XRCD. To my ears XRCD sounded superior to SACD. at-least to me at that point it was proven that mastering is perhaps the most important variable in ultimate SQ, rather than the format itself. Consequently when I do compare PCM to DSD I will try to compare a high quality Aiff 24/192 download of say a Chesky recording (btw some of these files are approaching 4gb) to DSD. I feel then we would be giving a good chance to see if any major difference does exist.
Cheers,
Sid
Cheers,
Sid
JVC's XRCD is not only mastering but also a manufacturing process. In addition to their proprietary mastering (20/24 bit up-sampling and use of dither) the physical manufacture of the discs is/was pretty involved. They are definitely some of the best you can get on optical disc.
The mastering part is now taken care of with availability of DSD from some labels. Technically you can get something very close to the studio master on DSD. The other area is the physical transport (CD Tray, laser quality etc) is now being replaced by computer audio. Digital media has liberated the content from the limitations of the CD - storage size and play back technology among other things.
Not saying that computer audio is better because a well implement CDP like an Accuphase DP 720 will absolutely kill anything out there at the moment.
The mastering part is now taken care of with availability of DSD from some labels. Technically you can get something very close to the studio master on DSD. The other area is the physical transport (CD Tray, laser quality etc) is now being replaced by computer audio. Digital media has liberated the content from the limitations of the CD - storage size and play back technology among other things.
Not saying that computer audio is better because a well implement CDP like an Accuphase DP 720 will absolutely kill anything out there at the moment.
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I agree on that Nikhil, but regarding the manufacturing process I have burnt XRCDs to ordinary discs and the improvement was maintained indicating that the mastering process made the biggest difference. You can also compare FLACs of XRCD and they sound consistently better. reason i am stating this is because all XRCDs I heard and owned sounded definitely better than CD's but not all SACDs I heard sounded better than CD. So evidently mastering process has an edge. Question is whether that edge is carried over to the digital domain. One thing I can say, most of the Chesky digital downloads sound excellent, so here again mastering process of making the recording is making a difference. So question is are DSD downloads consistently better. If i were to rip the DSD contet of an average sounding SACD disc using the Old sony ps2 method would it not sound worse off compared to an XRCD wav rip of the same album?
Cheers,
Sid
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reignofchaos
Well-Known Member
So after reading about Nikhil's positive experience with dsd, I gave Dsd converted to 176khz pcm a try. Bought Alan Parsons' Eye in the Sky and played it. Well all I can say is that I hear significantly more details than my ripped cd in a nice way. Bass is really clean and the mastering feels more laid back at the same time compared to CD. I have the speaker corner vinyl of the same album. The vinyl is closer in presentation to the dsd version than the cd rip for sure.
I wonder how this will sound on a good dsd dac where no conversion is involved.
I wonder how this will sound on a good dsd dac where no conversion is involved.
It's a fantastic sound for sure. Softer and more enjoyable to listen to.
Makes listening to modern compressed PCM almost unbearable.
The current thinking is to feed your DAC whatever is native to the chip. Do the heavy lifting away from the DAC (preferably on your computer) and then convert to your DAC's native resolution. HQPlayer from Signalyst is the hot software right now and it allows you to employ a range of filters (almost all apodizing) to let you choose what sounds best.
Makes listening to modern compressed PCM almost unbearable.
The current thinking is to feed your DAC whatever is native to the chip. Do the heavy lifting away from the DAC (preferably on your computer) and then convert to your DAC's native resolution. HQPlayer from Signalyst is the hot software right now and it allows you to employ a range of filters (almost all apodizing) to let you choose what sounds best.
Interesting that the Grimm white paper recommends high res pcm over DSD.
If your i2s question was in reference to PS Audio, my understanding is that i2s is indeed the format used inside CD players and DACs. However this is not an established external interface (different manufacturers have different implementation). Instead people use spdif and USB. The drawback with both these transport mechanisms is that they do not have a dedicated clock signal. Hence the downstream system (the DAC) has to guess the clock based on the data flowing in. Hence increased jitter and timing errors. And hence expensive solutions like external word clocks.
On top of this, the DAC then internally convers the spdif and USB format into i2s. So there is an i2s-spdif-i2s conversion happening between the transport and DAC.
I2s on the other hand has a separate clock channel besides the data channel. Hence the downstream DAC not only gets data but also gets the clock signal. So the DAC doesn't face timing issues. Plus, there is no unnecessary i2s-spdif-i2s conversion. It is i2s all the way.
And interestingly enough, PS audio and some others use HDMI as the interface to transport i2s. This is *not* the regular encrypted HDMI data but they are merely using the HDMI jack and cable to transport i2s.
Two different things. I was referring to the IS which is also known as Inter-IC Sound, Integrated Interchip Sound. Not to be confused with IC (Inter-Integrated Circuit) bus
PS Audio offers a completely different approach which is not considered native DSD - where one bit DSD is converted to 30 bit 30Mhz and then down sampled to DSD128. My point was about at the DAC itself. As far as I know all DACs handle IS internally so all this business of DSD and PCM all points to where one chooses to do the conversion. With a native DSD DAC you do it in the chip itself.
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reignofchaos
Well-Known Member
I do not have issues with pcm - there is no harshness if the dac is designed properly. It's just for this particular album, dsd converted to 176 KHz pcm sounded better than 16/44 ripped from the cd. Both probably have different mastering. I have tried hqplayer before. It works best if your dac supports dsd or dop. You can upsample everything to dsd then. With pcm output, I heard some distortion which I did not like. My dac anyway has a real good fpga based apodizing filter setup for pcm high res so hqplayer doesn't make much of a difference. Also its design philosophy shuns upsampling and prefers bitperfect input.
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I was actually referring to i2s and not i2c. It is the internal format used in DACs and CD players. And PS Audio and a few others like w4s and Audio GD have started supporting direct i2s over HDMI. I believe PS Audio pioneered this.
But yes, I did misunderstand your reference to i2s.
I2S standards from PS Audio - diyAudio
https://wyred4sound.com/products/dacs/dac-2-series
(See the inputs)
http://www.audio-gd.com/Master/Master-7/M7EN.htm
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I agree. I was referring to the highly compressed stuff that is commonly available today - DR values of 6-8 or less. DSD is so easy on the ears in comparison. Material from before the loudness wars started is so much easier on the ears with DR values averaging 12-15.
I heard some DSD recently while abroad and vs the same track in PCM the difference was noticeable - much smoother in the mids and highs, the lows seemed quite similar to me. Good read here on the technical aspects though 
So this weekend I spent a considerable time comparing PCM and DSD versions of the same Albums on my recently acquired DSD dac. for my second system. Listening to the dsd64 version of "Gardenias for Lady Day" by James Carter, I consistently preferred DSD to the 24/192 wav file - Higher resolution, smoother, greater dynamics were my thoughts. The album "My favourite things" from John Coltrane has been in my collection from over a decade in Cd, Vinyl, SACD and now in 24/96 wav and in DSD64. I am intimately familiar with this album, and even here I felt that the DSD version was superior basically smooth and warm just as analog should sound.
So at this point I am quite convinced that, Yes DSD makes an audible difference to SQ. Now the big challenge will be finding native DSD releases in the genre I prefer - Jazz.
Cheers,
Sid
So at this point I am quite convinced that, Yes DSD makes an audible difference to SQ. Now the big challenge will be finding native DSD releases in the genre I prefer - Jazz.
Cheers,
Sid
Thanks Nikhil. My concern however at this point is finding blue note jazz in DSD. Not too many titles out there in my little research that I have done.
Cheers,
Sid
Hey Nikhil, have I missed something or is this the first time you have mentioned this?
What DAC is that?
Highly recommend these albums - top notch recording in native DSD.
Not 60s Jazz in fact they were recorded in 2014 but of the same fabric.
https://yarlungrecords.nativedsd.com/albums/sophisticated-lady-vol-i
https://yarlungrecords.nativedsd.com/albums/sophisticated-lady-vol-ii
https://yarlungrecords.nativedsd.com/albums/simpler-times-vol-i
https://yarlungrecords.nativedsd.com/albums/simpler-times-vol-ii
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Lampizator. Keeping fingers crossed!!
I have also been experimenting upsampling all my PCM tracks to DSD128 using Jriver. To be honest I am not entirely sure I like this, I feel like all the tracks are un-naturally warm for lack of a better term. There are conflicting opinions for and against this on various forums plus various other techniques using other media players different DAC's etc, but for me I will prefer to avoid this. And as I stated before not really much content on DSD (my preferred genre)and just like SACD, it has taken a back seat in my listening preferences. I feel that if DSD has to make it into mainstream, they will have to start releasing a lot more native content in multiple genres. Otherwise it will remain a niche format like SACD and may eventually become irrelevant other than to audiophiles. What was surprising with SACD was that though players were available for as little as $300 there were not enough releases in mainstream music from the studios and the discs almost always cost more. Not sure where SACD is now but last I heard discs will be discontinued and concentration will be on making DSD fliles. Hope these DSD releases include a lot more generes - other than Western Classical or some long in the tooth obscure Rock group that wants yet another release for retirement funds.
Cheers,
Sid
Cheers,
Sid
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