Audio extractor recommendations for SACD (DSD) via HDMI to RME DAC?

[Redacted]

"People that are bothered by bit depths higher than 1 are just dogmatic: they cannot tolerate digital signal processing, I guess."

Cut 'n' paste sophistry? It's not about digital or not, it's about the idea that probably 99.9% of all music is now recorded in multi-track PCM, and processed down to stereo masters in PCM, including EQ. And I suspect most DSD offerings are processed in PCM even if the masters are from tape. This just means DSD is an unnecessary step, which increases file sizes for no human audio benefit. If a given DSD recording is specifically remixed or remastered differently to the PCM version that gets issued as the retailed music, and a listener prefers the EQ etc, then I can see why people may seek out that differently sounding version, but given speakers and rooms, the variation in "end sound" can be pretty big. I think most people will believe DSD is more about marketing for higher margins.

 

[mocenigo]

People that are bothered by the fact that DSD is transformed into a multibit representation when digital signal processing is performed onto it entirely miss the point, to my mind.

Of course they do.

The multibit aspect is just the consequence of going digital, which brings many advantages over analogue processings. People that are bothered by bit depths higher than 1 are just dogmatic: they cannot tolerate digital signal processing, I guess.

The direct way of converting a DSD stream is of course the simplest: a flip-flop and an analog filter—and this was marketed as an "analog" approach.

However, the conversion itself must use a ton of negative feedback.

So, audiophools find themselves in a weird conundrum: either accept a "digital" format or use a format that requires a ton of NFB. This will always haunt them.