Although interesting and quite informative, this thread about DSD is yet (n+1)th attempt at showing just how useless it is supposed to be - compared to the PCM.
The reason for the above statment ? Not a single member - at least in this thread - has not even hinted at the fact that she/has ever had access to the live microphone feed and consequent monitoring of both PCM and DSD recording.
Like in ACTUALLY BEING THERE - not just spreading hearsay by other people, who did compare the three.
I am doing it - constantly. Because I record music - mostly acoustical, any genre for which musicians themselves must have no clue what electricity is. Vocal, choir, classical, jazz, ethno - as long it is unplugged. Musicians are allowed LED lamps so that they can see their sheet music - everything else is off limits.
There are cases I have to do with Nikola Tesla's "Call From The Grave" - 50/60Hz hum ( and all its harmonics ... ) - plus any ultrasonic noise from the lighting. I will try to suppres the lighting to the max ... - but sometimes, it is unfortunately impossible to do that.
The importance of the recording - and consequent mastering, IF and WHEN required - plays far more important role than does the recording medium.
A properly recorded analog cassette master will always trounce a poorly recorded hirez - regardless if it is PCM, DSD or whatever.
That means only relatively simple miking techniques that can preserve tiny time differences in original sound are really suitable. Any multimiking is bound to blur these tiny differences - or nullify them completely.
Let me say it up front - I prefer DSD over PCM. To my ears, it sounds closer to the live mic feed than does PCM. Still, this holds true only if and when DSD is of sufficiently high oversampling frequency. DSD64 - or what is more known as SACD - is just not good enough. There is far too much ultrasonic noise above 20 kHz - which can and does affect the performance in nominally audible band ( 20 Hz-20kHz ). TBH, in that case, I am likely to prefer any 24bit depth PCM with sampling at least 88.2kHz. It takes DSD128 and above for the DSD to really start to deliver.
It means that the data required for the about comparable - not SAME - audio quality, PCM will require smaller file than DSD. But once one accepts that "waste", there is a sonic reward.
DSD ( if sampling is high enough...) can preserve spatial cues better than "equivalent" PCM. For that, recording venue has to be above certain limit in size - a typical jazz club is simply too small for this to be readily audible. But once great enough concert hall or church is in question, one can hear/sense/percept how the sound "travels"... - giving even on reproduction the proper scale of size of the venue, even on 2 channel only.
For those insisting Redbook CD is all that it takes ... - bounce the master in DSD to RBCD - and you get the typical flat soundstage with next to no depth.
DSD - even the lowly DSD64 - has frequency response extended above 20 kHz. By the time present standard in DSD recording - DSD256 - is achieved, it can cover response up to 100 kHz with about 100dB SNR even at that frequency - or something in the general vicinity of these two figures.
There is music WELL above 20 kHz - even well above 100 kHz. But present definition of HiRez Audio, which requires frequency response to about 40 kHz, is a good starter and a reasonable value for the interim period, before the full 100 kHz bandwidth becomes the standard.
You might ask - why ?
https://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm
The instrument that is on average the most alive above 20 kHz is harpsichord. In a good recording, there are overtones to at least 50 kHz. Although relatively low in level, they ARE there - and are not from lighting, CRTs, digital artefacts or any other source than the instrument itself.
The second instrument with a little less broad, but for that matter, far more precise defined content above 20 kHz, are chimes.
I agree DSD is difficult to work with, that it has to be converted into some form of PCM for editing - and , besides that, NOTHING else can be done to it in digital domain. In that, it is only slightly more forgiving tha recording direct to analog disk - multiple takes are possible, which can be later edited/spliced.
But there is no EQ, pitch autotune, or any other of untold amount of plugins available in PCM.
There are far fewer musicians capable of recording without the usual "safety net of PCM - we'll fix it in the mix" approch.
And even fewer willing to leave an error here or there in the finished product - despite the performance "in one go" containing that inexplicable but perceptible spirit a note by note perfect studio edited recordings almost always lack.
I agree that old recordings are NOT the proper representation of what DSD can do - either from analog tapes, but even more so from the early digital recording era.
I see there are now some attempts to standardize the way old recordings should be converted to DSD in order to be "legit" new DSD recordings. Although a move in right direction, the audio quality can never equal a well made DSD recording of today.
DSD will forever remain a niche within a niche - but, for those who understand it, know what it takes and are willing to go an extra mile, it will perhaps continue to represent the last safe heaven of honest music recording.
