DSD is better than PCM!

[pinpoint_oxford]

DG is still dribblin' em out

Herbert Von Karajan-Dvorak Symphonies Nos 8 9-Hybrid Stereo SACD|Acoustic Sounds

Acoustic Sounds Audiophile Vinyl Records

store.acousticsounds.com

The Cleveland Orchestra started releasing recordings on their own label as Hybrid SACD discs as well.

Recordings

www.clevelandorchestra.com

 

[Kal Rubinson]

The Cleveland Orchestra started releasing recordings on their own label as Hybrid SACD discs as well.

A few but the latest was just a CD with option for stereo-only DSD download.

 

[pinpoint_oxford]

A few but the latest was just a CD with option for stereo-only DSD download.

I don't have the latest release, but it does mention the SACD on the relase page as "CD (Hybrid SACD)" The first two releases I do own and they are indeed hybrid SACD discs.

 

[Galliardist]

As far as I understand, Sony gave up on SACD. I believe one of the engineers on the team bought out all the original recording equipment too.

That may be the case, but it's hard to tell if Sony as a corporation have any real position on audio. It's almost like audio is a battleground for the different product divisions they have these days, rather than any unified direction.

For a large corporation, dropping recording to DSD makes perfect sense. I'd restrict recording to DSD to purist cases where you aren't going to even consider editing the recording.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I don't have the latest release, but it does mention the SACD on the relase page as "CD (Hybrid SACD)" The first two releases I do own and they are indeed hybrid SACD discs.

You are right. I am referring to the Schnittke/Prokofiev disc which, unfortunately, is only in stereo. My disappointment is that there's no multichannel program.

 

[pinpoint_oxford]

I'd restrict recording to DSD to purist cases where you aren't going to even consider editing the recording.

I think part of the idea behind DSD was to be an archive format (like tape), a better digital store of the sound than PCM (especially at the time of its invention).

 

[mhardy6647]

I think I probably said this before, but I have always assumed/believed that SACD was a copy protection scheme masquerading as an audiophile upgrade.

 

[pinpoint_oxford]

I think I probably said this before, but I have always assumed/believed that SACD was a copy protection scheme masquerading as an audiophile upgrade.

Probably. These days that's not longer true since lossless downloads are readily available. That said, while SACD uses DSD, SACD ≠ DSD.

 

[dualazmak]

Even though it has been repeatedly discussed, let me emphasize again that so many "improperly engineered/processed HiRes music tracks" (due to poor quality control) including DSD contain considerably high amount of "near ultrasound - ultrasound" high frequency (UHF) noises.

I actually found/proved this issue and implemented my own protection measures (cut-off filter at 25 kHz) as you may find in my posts on my thread #362-#386.

 

[pinpoint_oxford]

Even though it has been repeatedly discussed, let me emphasize again that so many "improperly engineered/processed HiRes music tracks" (due to poor quality control) including DSD contain considerably high amount of "near ultrasound - ultrasound" high frequency (UHF) noises.

I actually found/proved this issue and implemented my own protection measures (cut-off filter at 25 kHz) as you may find in my posts on my thread #362-#386.

Isn't that one of the "quirks" of DSD? Creating a lot of noise at 30kHz+?

 

[dualazmak]

Isn't that one of the "quirks" of DSD? Creating a lot of noise at 30kHz+?

I believe it is a matter of quality control.
You would firstly please carefully read my post here.

I clearly found and shared that poorly QC-ed DSD contains a lot of UHF noises which maybe harmful to your audio system, to your ears, and/or to your beloved pets; nicely and properly QC-ed DSD, however, contains much less UHF noises.

I hope you would also please carefully read my posts on my thread #362-#386.

 

[pinpoint_oxford]

I believe it is a matter of quality control.
You would firstly please carefully read my post here.

I clearly found and shared that poorly QC-ed DSD contains a lot of UHF noises which maybe harmful to your audio system, to your ears, and/or to your beloved pets; nicely and properly QC-ed DSD contains much less UHF noises.

I did read your post. That "hump" in DSD is part of the package. You're not the first person to discover that. Higher sample rates make the hump smaller or push the noise higher up the frequency range.

 

[dualazmak]

Of course, I am not the first person.

At the beginning of my post there, I wrote;
> I assume many of you are aware of amirm's recent nice thread entitled "Comparison: PCM DXD DSD (Sound Liaison High Res Format Comparison)" and his YouTube video clip pasted in his very first post.

And I also wrote in my another post there;
>The issue has been also discussed around 2015 in Japan, like in this page even though in Japanese;
>https://sandalaudio.blogspot.com/2015/09/blog-post_17.html
>I hope your web browser would properly translate it into English.
>Where, "Niserezo (偽レゾ、ニセレゾ)" means "sham HiRes".
>The article is really nice and delivers almost the same messages as amirm just gave to us.

 

[Galliardist]

I think I probably said this before, but I have always assumed/believed that SACD was a copy protection scheme masquerading as an audiophile upgrade.

That was just an added extra. The main thing about SACD was that it wasn't DVD-A. That was a nasty little format war that everyone lost.

 

[Moosi]

Kill me if you want, but I do firmly believe my 16/24 -44khz Flacs sound better if I upscale them to DSD128 with Roon+HQplayer (polysinc_xtr_short/ASDM7EC).

How is it different? Well, it's not that there is more detail in it, but there appears at least to my ears to be more depth and space in between the cues and symbols ect.. With DSD there is more "dimensionality" to it. That being said, it could very well just be the ASDM7EC modulator in combination with the xtr filter who is doing the trick here. I'm not educated enough to really tell what's going on here, but I love it! Would prefer it over PCM 10/10 times on 10/10 songs.

 

[mhardy6647]

That was just an added extra. The main thing about SACD was that it wasn't DVD-A. That was a nasty little format war that everyone lost.

I remember it well.

 

[Galliardist]

I believe it is a matter of quality control.
You would firstly please carefully read my post here.

I clearly found and shared that poorly QC-ed DSD contains a lot of UHF noises which maybe harmful to your audio system, to your ears, and/or to your beloved pets; nicely and properly QC-ed DSD, however, contains much less UHF noises.

I hope you would also please carefully read my posts on my thread #362-#386.

There's a huge amount to read and digest in that other thread, and I'm interested to see that you weren't afraid to change your mind as your research and practical work progressed.

On the subject of QC and DSD, the ultrasonic noise is a necessary side effect of the DSD process. I've seen the idea of reducing the UHF noise expressed in a contrary way somewhere (I wasn't taking a lot of notice at the time), that low ultrasonic noise on an SACD recording may equate to more noise in the audio band. I'll leave that as a question for the more knowledgeable. If I remember rightly, some of the early players had a switchable filter but at a high 50kHz.

Your filtering solution looks good to me. I wondered why the original SACD players let so much noise through when it had no value: I concluded that it was marketing, they didn't want to admit that their ultrasonics were noise while fighting DVD-A which was being promoted as high resolution. It was of course independently measured before players were available to the public, so the pretence was unjustified as far as I can see anyway.

 

[Galliardist]

Kill me if you want, but I do firmly believe my 16/24 -44khz Flacs sound better if I upscale them to DSD128 with Roon+HQplayer (polysinc_xtr_short/ASDM7EC).

How is it different? Well, it's not that there is more detail in it, but there appears at least to my ears to be more depth and space in between the cues and symbols ect.. With DSD there is more "dimensionality" to it. That being said, it could very well just be the ASDM7EC modulator in combination with the xtr filter who is doing the trick here. I'm not educated enough to really tell what's going on here, but I love it! Would prefer it over PCM 10/10 times on 10/10 songs.

Have you level matched and blind tested this? I guess not, since you say "believe".

What DAC/s are you using?

I can believe this is possible as a sonic difference, most likely if your 44kHz playback is compromised in some way and you have better high frequency hearing than my older ears do.

 

[Newman]

I think I probably said this before, but I have always assumed/believed that SACD was a copy protection scheme masquerading as an audiophile upgrade.

That was just an added extra. The main thing about SACD was that it wasn't DVD-A. That was a nasty little format war that everyone lost.

Ahem. May I address the elephant in the room. The main thing about SACD was that it wasn't stereo.

And 99% of audiophoolia threw that great advance in the bin. To our eternal, rotten, stinking disgrace as a class. So badly did the audiophilia nervosa turn their back on this significant advance and opportunity, that the player manufacturers went so far as to strip MCH out of their high-end SACD players, in order to increase their appeal.

We ought to hang our heads in shame.

cheers

PS
Sony developed SACD so that they could own the next generation platform, make copying difficult, eliminate unprotected digital data streams, enable surround sound audio, and for marketing purposes insist that it sounds much better hence refreshing player sales. Notice how #4 seems to disappear in all the other noise. Yet multichannel audio done well does sound much better. That was the core sonic improvement for audiophiles. How many took it up?

 

[dadregga]

I think I probably said this before, but I have always assumed/believed that SACD was a copy protection scheme masquerading as an audiophile upgrade.

Probably. That's been blown wide open in the last few years tho.