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Does DSD sound better than PCM?

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Bluespower

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@dragonspit4 if you'convert to 192khz that means you by'pass the oversampling into the dac (in'most cases) then if'you'prefer'the'sound'of'your'own'oversampling filter that explains. To,me'it's better sounding when ovversampling by a muliple'of the frequency 176'4'khz for 44'1 khz. And it need less cpu.
 

Bluespower

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@dragonspit4 if you'convert to 192khz that means you by'pass the oversampling into the dac (in'most cases) then if'someone'prefer'the'sound'of it's own'oversampling filter that justify the convertion. To,me'it's better sounding when ovversampling by a muliple'of the frequency 176'4'khz for 44'1 khz. And it need less cpu. But generally to my hear leaving at 44'1khz is' the best.
 

pkane

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I think you mean lower than 24-bit because a DSD64 comes to about 18-bits of information.

When comparing DSD to PCM, DSD can generate an equivalent of any number of output bits resolution, as long as the DSD rate is high enough -- it depends on the number of stages in the demodulator. With DSD256 I have no trouble generating 24 bit samples at 192KHz (I think I'm using a 7 or 8 stage demodulator for this).
 
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mansr

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When comparing DSD to PCM, DSD can generate an equivalent of any number of output bits resolution, as long as the DSD rate is high enough -- it depends on the number of stages in the demodulator. With DSD256 I have no trouble generating 24 bit samples at 192KHz (I think I'm using a 7 or 8 stage demodulator for this).
Could you elaborate on that? Converting DSD to PCM is just a low-pass filter. What are the stages you refer to?
 

mansr

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Simple moving average accumulator stages, ala CIC.
That's a pretty poor low-pass filter, though easy to implement (and fast). You'd probably get better results with a more sophisticated filter.
 

pkane

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That's a pretty poor low-pass filter, though easy to implement (and fast). You'd probably get better results with a more sophisticated filter.

That was the goal: easy to implement! A multi-stage CIC demodulator produces very good quality, IME, and has the benefit of decimating in the same step. Probably a bit slow compared to an optimized low pass filter, especially with 7-8 stages.

BTW: It's easy to compute number of bits of resolution with CIC. It's basically K * Log2(N) where K is number of stages and N is the decimating factor. For example, in DSD128 to 192KHz conversion N is 29.4. With 5 CIC stages, the resulting resolution is 24.3 bits.
 
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jsrtheta

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transitive. To have use for or need of, to require; to be in want of.

“But it behove them to completely abandon their core clientele in the pro world”

It suited their commercial purpose. In the US, “behoove” is the more common spelling.

And the one I'm used to. Never saw "behove" before. Not that that''s any kind of standard...
 

jsrtheta

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Harrumph! :rolleyes:

As repeatedly demonstrated on this forum there are those whose lesser grasp of English does not prevent them from conveying information better than others who are native English speakers.

Kal See Grammar perhaps.
(Frasier pun intended)

Decent pun. But the death of grammar (as well as the hijacking of words like "performative" by those too lazy to use the language they were given) is alarming to me.
 

andreasmaaan

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@andreasmaaan
I'found this article about the noise problem and loss of resolution at high frequencies on dsd and delta sigma dacs.
https://support.auralic.com/hc/en-us/articles/206806457-What-s-the-Difference-Between-PCM-and-DSD-
That would be an advantage for true multibit dacs.

I read the article, but didn’t see anything about loss of resolution at high frequencies.

All it said (correctly) was that DSD gets noisy above the audio band - which is fine with me since I can’t hear it ;)
 

FrantzM

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I read the article, but didn’t see anything about loss of resolution at high frequencies.

All it said (correctly) was that DSD gets noisy above the audio band - which is fine with me since I can’t hear it ;)

not your ears but your amp and your tweeters may react rather badly with audible effects.

DSD is a waste producing process. It is a testimony to the power of marketing that we are still debating about it.
 

andreasmaaan

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not your ears but your amp and your tweeters may react rather badly with audible effects.

DSD is a waste producing process. It is a testimony to the power of marketing that we are still debating about it.

Your point is now clearer.

I’m no advocate of DSD btw. PCM is (more than) transparent.
 

Bluespower

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not your ears but your amp and your tweeters may react rather badly with audible effects.

DSD is a waste producing process. It is a testimony to the power of marketing that we are still debating about it.
So that is the same for pure delta sigma dacs that transforms PCM to dsd.
 

andreasmaaan

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So that is the same for pure delta sigma dacs that transforms PCM to dsd.

Firstly, it’s hard to imagine a real-world case where this might actually cause a problem. Most tweeters are outputting next to nothing at 40KHz, where DSD noise is lower than -60dB (that’s for standard DSD, for higher rate DSD the noise starts to rise at even higher frequencies).

That aside, DS PCM still goes through an anti-imaging filter, which means (except in the case of NOS) there will be no output above the Nyquist frequency (22.05KHz @ 44.1, 43KHz @ 96, etc).
 

Bluespower

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Firstly, it’s hard to imagine a real-world case where this might actually cause a problem. Most tweeters are outputting next to nothing at 40KHz, where DSD noise is lower than -60dB (that’s for standard DSD, for higher rate DSD the noise starts to rise at even higher frequencies).

That aside, DS PCM still goes through an anti-imaging filter, which means (except in the case of NOS) there will be no output above the Nyquist frequency (22.05KHz @ 44.1, 43KHz @ 96, etc).
Well is the anti aliasing filter included in the dsd dac ? To me dsd is like putting the oversampling and the filtering outside the dac comoared to pcm. Then the dac is much more easy to make. The advantage of dsd is that no mastering can be done :) but usually it's pcm converted to dsd cause there is always some mastering. So then dsd is just the filter of the pcm outside the dac compared to pcm data.
 

andreasmaaan

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Well is the anti aliasing filter included in the dsd dac ?

It doesn’t have to be for the format to work, but usually an analogue low-pass filter* is placed at about 50KHz in the output stage.

Yet another reason why the out-of-band noise is not a problem in the real world.

*Strictly speaking this is not an anti-imaging filter since DSD doesn’t have imaging problems like PCM does.
 

Bluespower

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It doesn’t have to be for the format to work, but usually an analogue low-pass filter* is placed at about 50KHz in the output stage.

Yet another reason why the out-of-band noise is not a problem in the real world.

*Strictly speaking this is not an anti-imaging filter since DSD doesn’t have imaging problems like PCM does.
Then do you think noise of nos dacs is a problem? Maybe 2 times oversampling would be enough. Nos dac have a kind of oversampling with sample hold. That means the value is kept on waiting the next value. Maybe harmonics from nos doesn't hide low level details but on the contrary you hear them better. I saw some old tests that was saying that a little harmonics was good. If you have no harmonics then next low level sound is the noise. Maybe harmonics are hiding the noise (of the dac or of the poorly mastered record) and are pleasant and can reveal details.
 

andreasmaaan

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Then do you think noise of nos dacs is a problem?

NOS DACs have so many inherent flaws IMHO that noise is the least of your concerns ;)

I saw some old tests that was saying that a little harmonics was good. If you have no harmonics then next low level sound is the noise. Maybe harmonics are hiding the noise (of the dac or of the poorly mastered record) and are pleasant and can reveal details.

In most rooms, noise below -70dB or -80dB is completely inaudible, never mind the -120dB or better offered by any decent DS DAC. So there’s no need for anything added to the sound to “hide” the noise.

And let’s make a clear distinction between what some ppl prefer (audible distortion) and fidelity to the source :)
 
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