DSD genuine improvement or marketing tool?

[FrantzM]

The thing I am trying to wrap my head around Mike is why do you think DSD is "better" sounding. Is that established by facts or is it your preference or of some gurus in the High End Audio scene?
I personally have found DSD to be interesting. I haven't scrutinized my findings ( Blind Testing, Level matching, etc) I have simply used the demo of HQ player through an i7 server and I found I liked it .. more than PCM? Not sure.. Enough to attach the server permanently to my system? Not yet. I understand this website leans toward facts-based audiophile impressions rather than I-heard-it-then-it-is the truth kind of attitudes thus I would like to have more than what you found palatable with just your taste, knowledge and words to back it up. I don't bow to appeal-to-authority arguments tactics.
On this your knowledge of Digital Audio and of Audio in general is vast and is more than welcome, a breath of fresh air in this hobby but I need more proofs than that. Right now I see DSD as a marketing thing. As an engineer I find it wasteful and distortion-producing. At the psycho-acoustics level .. It is a whole different game. I read today an interesting post by BruceB (He should post here too BTW) in which he describes how sometimes Digital is fed to analog tape to produce a (his words) "more cohesive" Some people may react well to this manipulation (Think how SET is truly pleasing for some) and DSD could well be doing similar things to Audio as to attract several analog-die-hard or it could all be placebo... I don't know and I repeat, I need proofs to move forward or change my position.

 

[FrantzM]

check this out, see how one letter forms the next and the black on red.. this would work for you.. imo alter your logo a little, put it on red background with you name underneath.. sexy!
View attachment 454

this is relevant to thread as we have established DSD is marketing.

and when amir Khan is picking his teeth off the canvass after a few rounds with canelo we will see he is also marketing..

Me likey logo

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

The thing I am trying to wrap my head around Mike is why do you think DSD is "better" sounding. Is that established by facts or is it your preference or of some gurus in the High End Audio scene?
I personally have found DSD to be interesting. I haven't scrutinized my findings ( Blind Testing, Level matching, etc) I have simply used the demo of HQ player through an i7 server and I found I liked it .. more than PCM? Not sure.. Enough to attach the server permanently to my system? Not yet. I understand this website leans toward facts-based audiophile impressions rather than I-heard-it-then-it-is the truth kind of attitudes thus I would like to have more than what you found palatable with just your taste, knowledge and words to back it up. I don't bow to appeal-to-authority arguments tactics.
On this your knowledge of Digital Audio and of Audio in general is vast and is more than welcome, a breath of fresh air in this hobby but I need more proofs than that. Right now I see DSD as a marketing thing. As an engineer I find it wasteful and distortion-producing. At the psycho-acoustics level .. It is a whole different game. I read today an interesting post by BruceB (He should post here too BTW) in which he describes how sometimes Digital is fed to analog tape to produce a (his words) "more cohesive" Some people may react well to this manipulation (Think how SET is truly pleasing for some) and DSD could well be doing similar things to Audio as to attract several analog-die-hard or it could all be placebo... I don't know and I repeat, I need proofs to move forward or change my position.

This. Though I don't expect any proof on an audiophile forum. A measured and analyzed difference in system output, evidence of the only thing that matters, would be fine. And I'm not going there myself, regardless, so it's just intellectual curiosity on my part. I'll completely understand if no one has the time or tools to do it.

Off-subject; whenever I see a tube in a DAC, I giggle. From this layman's point of view that's about as serious as a paper flower sticking out of a clown's ear. Have a great day, folks.

Tim

 

[Purité Audio]

From a manufacturers standpoint there is huge pressure to include DSD in any products, Weiss didn't initially offer it, I think Daniel believes it flawed, if you look at his white paper it is largely dismissive.
But sales were affected because he didn't include it, and ultimately he had to succumb .
DSD was developed ( I believe) to digitise analogue, it didn't allow any editing so was quickly replaced by PCM.
I think it just the latest fad.
Keith.

 

[Purité Audio]

@ Sonny of Phison, do you have an opinion on PCM/DSD?
John Westlake says he prefers analogue ( vinyl I suppose ) to digital ,although he is a digital designer, but he states that DSD is the closest format to analogue.
Keith.

 

[FrantzM]

It seems that the best way for a digital designer to elevate his/her standing in the High End Audio sector is to declare that in spite of his/her designing digital gears, his/her reference is analog. A few years he/she would have stated Vinyl but since R2R is now The Analog Reference (for good reasons IMHO) then "Analog" covers more ground and surprisingly sometimes covers Cassette . These days DSD is the preferred digital flavor, preferably with a suffix in front of it .. Not as Savage as remarked "Octo" which is not cool.. better to use "Quad"
Gears that don't do DSD won't cut the mustard.

 

[amirm]

DSD's design motivation was one and only one thing: the CD patents that Philips and Sony owned were expiring and they had to create a new format to renew that revenue stream. Using higher sample rate PCM, put on DVD which was not their format (Toshiba/Warner owned most of the patents there), wouldn't do. So they decided to go with DSD stream which was the output of a 1-bit sigma-delta converter. That was the business motivation. It was not a search for highest quality format and using that.

 

[amirm]

It is ironic that analog lovers have a preference for DSD over PCM when it has the least number of bits. Isn't the usual complaint that digital has "steps" that make it not sound as good as analog? Why was that analogy not applied to a 1-bit format of all things?

 

[Thomas savage]

thanks for the truth amir.. its all marketing and protection of revenue based not solely motivated by audio fidelity.

that's not to say it can't sound good but maybe it was not strictly speaking necessary for the realization of high fidelity digital , but its here now a lot of effort is going in to make it sound great, i just wish we had one format, PCM DXD from start to finish. all this DSD is a distraction imo but that's life.

 

[Thomas savage]

 

[amirm]

BTW, I should mention despite any theoretical flaws it may have, DSD can sound exceptionally good.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Agreed, analog from traditional and flawed analog media should not be the ultimate sonic standard to take us into the future. But, it is for many nonetheless. It is what they know, often all that they know.

DSD has, rightly or wrongly, made a very deep impression on a small, vocal and dogged segment of the market. That, and the chip sets are readily available now to easily provide X times DSD and hi rez PCM. So, it makes all the sense in the world to design and market a product that does "everything" for broadest possible market appeal. Even an audiophile with little prior DSD experience would very likely choose a DAC that offers DSD vs. one that does not, just for curiosity if nothing else. It is a marketing "no brainer". It does not matter if it provably sounds better or not. It only matters if people think it does or that it might eventually.

That and if 1x is good, 2x, 4x, etc. must be better, right? No problem. The chipsets easily accommodate 4x DSD now, likely more in future. See exploding numbers of megapixels on digital cameras, a marketing must in the camera business. Do they help on anything other than the much less than 1% of photos I choose to enlarge? No, but the chips are there to do it cheaply enough. Plus, all the competition is doing it, too. Not doing it would create a potential marketing negative, even if buyers never actually benefit from the higher megapixel capability. A lot of them might think they will someday, but probably they won't. Still, if there were two cameras side by side in the store at the same price, the higher megapixel spec one would likely be the choice of most regardless of other qualitative differences.

My DAC does up to 4x DSD and 384k PCM, not that I bought it for that reason or for DSD at all. I think DSP with Room EQ including the conversion from DSD to PCM is many times more significant sonically than the pure DSD vs. PCM arguments. I also do not see very much in the way of distributed media becoming available that can use ultra high resolutions in my remaining years. So far, my informal testing is limited with ultra resolution sources, but I have thus far heard only the very slightest possible phantom of maybe a difference. No way I could hear it blind, so far, at least.

 

[Sal1950]

Don't know what it is but ever since I moved down here to DisneyWorld I feel much more at home in High End Audio.

 

[Mivera]

The thing I am trying to wrap my head around Mike is why do you think DSD is "better" sounding. Is that established by facts or is it your preference or of some gurus in the High End Audio scene?
I personally have found DSD to be interesting. I haven't scrutinized my findings ( Blind Testing, Level matching, etc) I have simply used the demo of HQ player through an i7 server and I found I liked it .. more than PCM? Not sure.. Enough to attach the server permanently to my system? Not yet. I understand this website leans toward facts-based audiophile impressions rather than I-heard-it-then-it-is the truth kind of attitudes thus I would like to have more than what you found palatable with just your taste, knowledge and words to back it up. I don't bow to appeal-to-authority arguments tactics.
On this your knowledge of Digital Audio and of Audio in general is vast and is more than welcome, a breath of fresh air in this hobby but I need more proofs than that. Right now I see DSD as a marketing thing. As an engineer I find it wasteful and distortion-producing. At the psycho-acoustics level .. It is a whole different game. I read today an interesting post by BruceB (He should post here too BTW) in which he describes how sometimes Digital is fed to analog tape to produce a (his words) "more cohesive" Some people may react well to this manipulation (Think how SET is truly pleasing for some) and DSD could well be doing similar things to Audio as to attract several analog-die-hard or it could all be placebo... I don't know and I repeat, I need proofs to move forward or change my position.

You keep talking about your opinion of it, but you never talk about the gear you tested it with. Once again the hardware used matters. Since you won't divulge the hardware you use, it's hard to put much weight on your opinion.

 

[Mivera]

Agreed, analog from traditional and flawed analog media should not be the ultimate sonic standard to take us into the future. But, it is for many nonetheless. It is what they know, often all that they know.

DSD has, rightly or wrongly, made a very deep impression on a small, vocal and dogged segment of the market. That, and the chip sets are readily available now to easily provide X times DSD and hi rez PCM. So, it makes all the sense in the world to design and market a product that does "everything" for broadest possible market appeal. Even an audiophile with little prior DSD experience would very likely choose a DAC that offers DSD vs. one that does not, just for curiosity if nothing else. It is a marketing "no brainer". It does not matter if it provably sounds better or not. It only matters if people think it does or that it might eventually.

That and if 1x is good, 2x, 4x, etc. must be better, right? No problem. The chipsets easily accommodate 4x DSD now, likely more in future. See exploding numbers of megapixels on digital cameras, a marketing must in the camera business. Do they help on anything other than the much less than 1% of photos I choose to enlarge? No, but the chips are there to do it cheaply enough. Plus, all the competition is doing it, too. Not doing it would create a potential marketing negative, even if buyers never actually benefit from the higher megapixel capability. A lot of them might think they will someday, but probably they won't. Still, if there were two cameras side by side in the store at the same price, the higher megapixel spec one would likely be the choice of most regardless of other qualitative differences.

My DAC does up to 4x DSD and 384k PCM, not that I bought it for that reason or for DSD at all. I think DSP with Room EQ including the conversion from DSD to PCM is many times more significant sonically than the pure DSD vs. PCM arguments. I also do not see very much in the way of distributed media becoming available that can use ultra high resolutions in my remaining years. So far, my informal testing is limited with ultra resolution sources, but I have thus far heard only the very slightest possible phantom of maybe a difference. No way I could hear it blind, so far, at least.

All I see here is another opinion with no data on the hardware used for testing.

 

[Blumlein 88]

It seems that the best way for a digital designer to elevate his/her standing in the High End Audio sector is to declare that in spite of his/her designing digital gears, his/her reference is analog. A few years he/she would have stated Vinyl but since R2R is now The Analog Reference (for good reasons IMHO) then "Analog" covers more ground and surprisingly sometimes covers Cassette . These days DSD is the preferred digital flavor, preferably with a suffix in front of it .. Not as Savage as remarked "Octo" which is not cool.. better to use "Quad"
Gears that don't do DSD won't cut the mustard.

Oh we aren't too many years away from Quad Sqared DSD. That sounds pretty cool. Running at over 45 mhz sample rate.

 

[Blumlein 88]

All I see here is another opinion with no data on the hardware used for testing.

You say this over and over. If DSD were all that great, why is it so shy about showing its benefit? And if you know of some method of telling me if my DAC is good enough to show the benefit of DSD or not then tell us what the key metric is. Do you think the bulk of DACs doing DSD don't do it justice? If so, why not? What do they lack?

 

[Mivera]

You say this over and over. If DSD were all that great, why is it so shy about showing its benefit? And if you know of some method of telling me if my DAC is good enough to show the benefit of DSD or not then tell us what the key metric is. Do you think the bulk of DACs doing DSD don't do it justice? If so, why not? What do they lack?

It's not shy to show it's benefit if you have the right hardware. If you want to know which DAC types shine the best with DSD check out this thread:

http://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/1-bit-dsd-dac-implementations.129/

If you don't have one of those types, then DSD doesn't shine as much. However everyone still raves about the Merging NADAC's DSD performance and it uses a Sabre chip. Same with my old Exasound E20 which used a Sabre chip as well. So quad DSD can sound excellent even with SDM chips that don't have a DSD direct bypass mode.

 

[Ron Party]

Anecdotal story.

A few years ago I attended a demo at my local high end audio shop in Berkeley. In attendance, amongst others, were Yuki Sugiura of Sony, a genuinely nice man with a wealth of knowledge, because the demo included the then relatively new Sony top of the line flagship speakers, and Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast Records, a vocal proponent of DSD. The seminar was held in the main showroom. Electronics used included the then top of the line dCS stack.

Cookie stood in front of the group in attendance, which included about 20-30 folks, and shared what she believed about the differences in the formats, including things we all have heard like longer tails with DSD or redbook is incapable of capturing the sound of a violin.

Cookie brought with her a recording of some violin music which she had recorded in DSD and then put out on her label on both SACD and CD. She then played both discs. Three people in the group in attendance were violin players. All 3 stated, rather forcefully, that the redbook sounded truer to what they knew to be the violin sound. Cookie's jaw dropped and her eyes glazed over. She recovered quickly and responded with words to the effect of: "Well, that's why we offer the music in different formats."

 

[amirm]

That must have been one awkward moment.