One to set the cat among the pigeons - a DSD vs PCM comparison

[arj]

..
The mass consumers of music do not care about bits and bytes and samples-per-second. They just want music. That, in the download market, is going to make selling a different format very hard

Very true the key here is as to who is going to pay for the music ! many folks ( like me) already have most of the cds , LPs or CD Rips covering majority of the music one listens to . Some hardsell might encourage experimentation, but music labels , in order to make a quick buck will again upsample regular content and punt it off as Hi Rez and hence make hi rez lose credibility.
This is quite similar to what happened to SACD.

In the end untill the music system is capable of reproducing differences between Hi rez and regular why would one go for it ? ..and how many folks even care about systems for High rez..you still see discussions about how 256kbps rips are equal to Lossless

 

[thx911]

Should DAC manufacturers also pay royalty?.

Not sure if the DAC manufacturers pay any royalty - all modern day DAC chips are based on Delta-Sigma architecture, meaning capable of processing both PCM and DSD signals - The buzz around the DSD capable DAC seems to stem more from the marketing hype than any significant architectural design difference.

Is royalty paid for content also?

IIRC content producers do need to pay royalty to Sony as it has its stranglehold on DSD

Whatever is the conclusion, if at all one is arrived at, PCM is toooooo mighty a contender for DSD to overcome because.... its just everywhere.

Might amounts to very little in the technology world, Classic examples - SONY, NOKIA, RIM... disruptive innovation will unseat the mighty & popular in unimaginable ways!

There is no way to process the data, you can only decode DSD directly to DAC. No bass management, no equalization, nothing else can be done on DSD stream.

This is not entirely true, there were systems available that was capable, Outlaw did bring out one such system to the market The Outlaw ICBM FAQ

If you have to do any of that, then the DSD needs to be converted to PCM. This is a big hurdle to DSD, Unless one is prepared to put 5 identical, full range speaker, at exactly same distance from the listener.

think you are confusing DSD with Multichannel - not sure why else one would need 5 identical speakers? here is good and simple link on DSD vs PCM https://www.nuforce.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=40&Itemid=2674

 

[thx911]

Hi thx911 were you referring to this AES E-Library Audibility of a CD-Standard A/DA/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback ?

don't exactly recall if this is the one, the net is strewn with this controversy since DSD first made its debut. here is one of the AES paper http://sjeng.org/ftp/SACD.pdf

This link is the most interesting one i've read so far, wont be surprised if may agree with Ing. hman. CD vs. DVD-A vs. SACD

 

[manoj.p]

This is not entirely true, there were systems available that was capable, Outlaw did bring out one such system to the market The Outlaw ICBM FAQ

think you are confusing DSD with Multichannel - not sure why else one would need 5 identical speakers? here is good and simple link on DSD vs PCM https://www.nuforce.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=40&Itemid=2674

That outlaw device works in the analog domain, because DSD doesn't allow bass management in digital domain. That itself shows the limitation of the format. PCM does not have that and allows easy processing.

About multi-channel DSD, yes I was referring to multichannel because that was one of the big strength of SACD. That's the disc format used multi-channel, hi-rez DSD music. If one is talking only about 2 channels, very few people do bass management. None of stereo amps have bass management or equalization.

 

[manoj.p]

Things do move on, and CD elbowed vinyl out of the mass market, just as downloads are now finishing off the CD trade.

The mass consumers of music do not care about bits and bytes and samples-per-second. They just want music. That, in the download market, is going to make selling a different format very hard

Yes. PCM has been the backbone of digital music, ever since it appeared on CD's. Those were uncompressed PCM audio. As we moved forward, more codec's started appearing like wav, mp3, encrypted format like DTS, Dolby Digital and all of those are extracted to PCM for further audio processing. This has continued in the hi-rez format DVD-Audio, DD TrueHD, DTS-HDMA. The only exception is "DSD to DAC" devices.

The point is - PCM has been there in almost all digital audio devices. If Sony comes out an easy way to do DSD processing (even at recording/mixing stage), then only they can think of being any competition to PCM at all. Otherwise it will become like "coming back of Vinyl", a very niche market.

 

[thx911]

DSD doesn't allow bass management in digital domain. That itself shows the limitation of the format.

Well, Digital audio workstations like Pyramix, SADiE, Sonoma etc have existed for quite some time capable of manipulating DSD in digital domain, apart from the technical challenges faced in manipulating 1-bit data stream, most of the current studio equipment are PCM based and renders itself well for working on PCM data stream, so its not a fact to say DSD doesn't allow bass management. This has very little to do with DSD as a format, the format itself is innocent, it became a victim at the hands of Sony. New studio standards like "DSD-Wide" now enable DAWs to carry out DSP manipulation of DSD with much ease keeping the claimed benefits of high frequency sampling intact without decimating to PCM, So the situation is not entirely hopeless.

About multi-channel DSD, yes I was referring to multichannel because that was one of the big strength of SACD. That's the disc format used multi-channel, hi-rez DSD music. If one is talking only about 2 channels, very few people do bass management. None of stereo amps have bass management or equalization.

Though Sony did market SACD as the medium for M.Ch, it does not ruboff the same to DSD. In-fact PCM does a much better job at M.Ch for the same reasons you stated above. The current crop of DSD DACs and DSD content are more focused on 2 Ch, so by logic the lack(or technical limitations) of DSP capability for DSD in digital domain makes for a weak case against the format. with Sony getting back into the game guess there is more to come and a lot of action happening behind the scene,let see...

Hi-Res Audio - Home Theater Speakers & Components Sony Store - Sony US