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DSD. Good, Bad or Ugly?

Whaleblue

Whaleblue

Southbound
OK, so I'm a sceptic on all things digital anyway, but what do people think about DSD?

What is it meant to be good at, and why?

Let's try not to turn this into a pointless bun fight - though reasoned argument is, of course, the point.

To be honest I'm tempted to get a DAC to experiment longer term, and thoughts include the possible development of DSD bitrates.

Thoughts?
 
Leaving aside the technicalities which I'm not qualified to comment on, it might result in a market for separate "premium" downloads with better mastering (or - more cynically - the dynamic compression disabled), which would be a good thing if (a) it wasn't just limited to classical music and prog rock, and (b) the price isn't massively inflated (or only temporarily so).
 
Over fifteen years ago I ran a personal website on things audio. It contained a short opinion article on the issues with SACD, DSD, and the politics around it.

I subsequently got threatened by a certain Asian electronics manufacturer with legal action against me and my ISP. I folded, because at exactly that time I was co-founding an electronics company that was likely to depend significantly on the Asian market and on cooperation with certain companies there.
 
DSD has no benefit unless it is mastering from analogue.

using a dsd recorder or anything other than analogue>>DSD converer>>medium

, negates any benefit(transparency). this is because the HF in the source hits a second delta sigma modulator.
 
Vital said:
Werner, do your current commercial interests preclude further comment?
Click to expand...

Yes. But I don't care. DSD is a profoundly bad idea. It is now used to re-inject live into the hifi gear industry: hype it up and force everyone to new purchases. It still sux. Not that my opinion matters.
 
Apart from the audible differences (the HF noise from DSD might cause some euphonic effects) the major issue with DSD is that for any sort of processing (as done in the studio or in a DSP processor) it has to be converted to a multi-bit format and back again.

It might have been a decent format for archiving recordings in the 90's, considering the limitations at the time...
 
Vital said:
OK, so I'm a sceptic on all things digital anyway, but what do people think about DSD?

What is it meant to be good at, and why?

Let's try not to turn this into a pointless bun fight - though reasoned argument is, of course, the point.

To be honest I'm tempted to get a DAC to experiment longer term, and thoughts include the possible development of DSD bitrates.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Hasn't this been done to death quite recently (within the last 2 weeks) on a long thread? The supposed benefits are
a) almost unlimited frequency range if you ignore the inevitable high pass filter
b) blah blah look at the impulse response
c) blah blah analog
d) some producer or other says it sounds better
e) all dacs are delta sigma anyway
f) there exists quite a decent catalog in classical music

the actual benefits are
g) we need to sell more hifi equipment
h) we need to sell more music
i) you lot are the only ones who actually buy music
j) you lot are the only ones who actually buy hifi
k) lets face it you need to buy more hifi
l) and music
 
adamdea said:
Hasn't this been done to death quite recently (within the last 2 weeks) on a long thread?[...]
Click to expand...

Probably, I may have missed it :)

It's certainly been referenced in the context of certain DACs, but just wondered what the non-implementation specific thoughts might be.
 
I actually use it for archiving analogue recordings.

I haven't been threatened by it's creator so therefore have a positive viewpoint.

I can't be arsed with arguing the toss on the internet with the objective brigade.

If you like it use it.
 
Vital said:
Probably, I may have missed it :)

It's certainly been referenced in the context of certain DACs, but just wondered what the non-implementation specific thoughts might be.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure Werner explained what his objections were on the thread I'm thinking of. It might have been the one about the Ps audio dac, but it might have been another one going around the same time

I posted the links to Mayer and Moran and the dsd v high rate pcm test. Probably also the Boston audio society test in which Ivor Tiefenbrun couldn't tell an LP12 from a 16/44 ADC DAC loop. Maybe the article from the AES convention about 1 bit converters being inherently non linear or something. I'm just too tired.

IMHO the questions you have to ask yourself is these-
a) does it make me feel really upset that the version of dark side of the moon I have might be the best there is?

b) does it make me feel upset if it might turn out that there are predictable limits on the sounds I might be able to discriminate?

c) if I buy a new version of dark side of the moon and prefer it, will it enhance my enjoyment if I believe that this is because I have been able to hear more of/get closer to the recording

d) do I care whether this is the case?

e) if I pay £20 for a new version of dark side of the moon will it annoy me if I could have heard the same sounds if I instead bought the 7.99 version?
 
Werner said:
Yes. But I don't care. DSD is a profoundly bad idea. It is now used to re-inject live into the hifi gear industry: hype it up and force everyone to new purchases. It still sux. Not that my opinion matters.
Click to expand...

Werner, I trust your insight into these things, so thanks for the candid reply.
 
adamdea said:
IMHO the questions you have to ask yourself is these-
a) does it make me feel really upset that the version of dark side of the moon I have might be the best there is?

b) does it make me feel upset if it might turn out that there are predictable limits on the sounds I might be able to discriminate?

c) if I buy a new version of dark side of the moon and prefer it, will it enhance my enjoyment if I believe that this is because I have been able to hear more of/get closer to the recording

d) do I care whether this is the case?

e) if I pay £20 for a new version of dark side of the moon will it annoy me if I could have heard the same sounds if I instead bought the 7.99 version?
Click to expand...

Umm...

Fish?
 
adamdea said:
e) if I pay £20 for a new version of dark side of the moon will it annoy me if I could have heard the same sounds if I instead bought the 7.99 version?
Click to expand...

That would annoy me and does. I have a few DSD (SACD) recordings on hybrid discs and they sound no better than the CD layer. Likewise I have many that sound superior.

Does this mean tho' that the SACD layer has just not been engineered well?
 
You can have both.

Spock-Pony-e1341908055352.jpg


Such attention to detail — the eyebrows, the boots, the black shiny mane,...

Joe
 
Werner said:
Yes. But I don't care. DSD is a profoundly bad idea. It is now used to re-inject live into the hifi gear industry: hype it up and force everyone to new purchases. It still sux. Not that my opinion matters.
Click to expand...

I don't even think it's there to breathe new life into the hi-fi industry. There are many of us who have been extremely critical of DSD for a number of reasons (some technical, some purely economic) who have had to recant, because the US audio buying public is adamant they like the idea of DSD. They may have the princely sum of absolutely no DSD recordings personally and have precisely no plans to ever invest in a single DSD recording, but right now it's 'no DSD, no sale' at all points.

It's not that easy a mod to 'DSD-ify' some existing 24/192 based DACs. Worse, if you were six months into a five year product life cycle, having to make this kind of significant revision to your product can be expensive, especially as you have to offer a fair-price upgrade to existing customers.

This was supposedly the year of the streamer, with lots of US companies spending substantial R&D costs in developing a UPnP streamer. None of which were capable of supporting DSD, and all of them turned their 'new' 24/192 streamer into a 'prototype' DSD streamer at CES, or face people just walk away.

This is yet more Emperor's New Clothes, IMO. But the end of that story is wrong. No-one would have laughed along with the little boy: he and his family would have been exiled for their unbelief, and died a poor and lonely death.
 
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