DSD: Any Takers?

[richardfinegold]

Has anyone become an enthusiast for DSD downloads? I have many SACD (the sonic superiority of which is largely due to DSD, not multichannel) discs and the medium intrigues me but I haven't dipped my toe in for the following reasons.

1) Generally I don't like doing downloads. Some of my reluctance was due to a spotty Internet Connection, and the few downloads that I had purchased were troubled by dropouts, etc, besides taking forever to download. I have recently upgraded my Internet Connection however so perhaps I should try the waters again.

2) I don't enjoy usb listening. I have had a few DACs and always feel that the usb input is inferior to the other digital inputs. However, I just resurrected a DAC that I have had from the Pro Audio world that takes a firewire interface. I had discovered that that there is a thunderbold/fw
interface cable and now the improvement from my Mac Air is revelatory.

However, this DAC won't play DSD. The expense involved in purchasing such a DAC would render the whole project prohibatory. I have just learned that the DAC of my Oppo 105 Universal Player will play DSD via a firmware update but I am not sure which of the inputs has this capability. If it will only do this via the usb input, which has already been felt to be wanting, i don't think that I would be interested.

[Dave2002]

Didn't we look at this a few months ago? I remember I was, at that time, of the opinion that DSD would be expensive, with even the cheapest DSD DAC costing more than a week's pay for most of us, but you pointed out that there are now some cheaper DSD DACs, perhaps starting around the £400 mark. It's also possible that some DACs will do DSD as well as PCM, so eventually some users will get a choice of data format, which they may choose to exercise. When that happens, users could post here, and tell us how it all went.

[Thropplenoggin]

An interesting thread. Is this more record label snake oil, to make us part with cash anew for records we already own? Or can we really hear a difference in hi-res? Like when trying to describe a health issue to a doctor ('what kind of pain is it?'), words seem poorly suited to the task of talking about what we think we hear in hi-res: 'fuller', 'more detailed', etc. The experts on this R4 discussion fared no better in saying what they thought they heard. When listening blind, they ended up choosing a lo-res file!

Can I hear a difference between 16/44 and 24/96 and 24/192? I'm just not sure. Sometimes I believe I can, when I know it's that type of file I'm listening to, but I've never done A/B testing.

[Dave2002]

The experts on this R4 discussion fared no better in saying what they thought they heard. When listening blind, they ended up choosing a lo-res file!

The recording used for that programme is in any case "artificial" (probably a few microphones, mixed, limited stereo ambience, perhaps - though it almost sounds like mono ) - it is presumably a commercial recording. The Hi-Res version has significantly lower background noise, and under some conditions should sound better, and I did prefer it. It's hard to be sure that the transmission encoding used for the clip didn't also affect the audio, but I could hear a difference. I doubt if I'd have been able to without using headphones, though - and without prompting!

I have been "tested" and also chose a low resolution version of music (orchestral, Tchaikovsky) which had been encoded using mp3, to the amusement of the student testers. However I did not get to hear the original recording. The higher bit rate mp3s had obvious artefacts, while the lower bit rate mp3 samples had significant high frequency cut off, which on the sample I heard gave a smoother sound. I might have "got it right" if I'd been allowed to hear the original recording - although there again - it might have had faults which the encoding process actually reduced!

[richardfinegold]

Didn't we look at this a few months ago? I remember I was, at that time, of the opinion that DSD would be expensive, with even the cheapest DSD DAC costing more than a week's pay for most of us, but you pointed out that there are now some cheaper DSD DACs, perhaps starting around the £400 mark. It's also possible that some DACs will do DSD as well as PCM, so eventually some users will get a choice of data format, which they may choose to exercise. When that happens, users could post here, and tell us how it all went.

We did discuss this before but I was wondering if in the interim anyone had taken the plunge and started investing in DSD downloads and the technology required. The audiophile magazines, such as Hi Fi News and stereophile, report increasing releases of DSD DACs. I have to admit that apropos of Throps' post, I am a sucker for new formats and have been persuaded (conned?) into repurchasing favorite recordings in various formats.
My curiousity has been peaked by Sony issue of a DSD Hard Drive (1 TB) that was on the cover of both of the aforementioned audio mags. Apparently it converts PCM to DSD on the fly. I am also trying to digitalize the mass of my red book CDs for space saving purposes and trying to figure out the easiest and best sounding way of doing this.
Mytek Audio has a DAC that will play DSD and takes firewire input. It was developed by the man that Sony had contracted to develop DSD for their SACD. It goes for about $1500 here and is readily available in the UK (most of the reviews that I have seen are from British writers). It uses the same Sabre ESS 32 bit chip that my Oppo uses. I was considering it until I decided to resurrect my firewire DAC.
I think firewire is a much better medium than usb, which was developed mainly for printers, and is not meant to transmit audio or video. All the attempts to improve usb that I have heard are only partially successful.
I use macs but found myself ina microsoft store yesterday, across the aisle from an Apple store, and could not believe how cheap some of the PCs have become. An Acer model with 4 RAM and 500 TB hard drive that ouputted HDMI was going for $300! Many DACs now feature HDMI inputs (including my Oppo).
HDMI has generally been a high jitter interface but sometimes these DACs get good reviews because they accept only the audio content and jettison the video, which is suppossed to reduce the jitter. My wife and I both have to do professional education related programs at home and sometimes these programs won't run on Macs and I wind up having to transport a Windows laptop from work for this, but it's a pain. Maybe I'll just buy this little laptop and fool around with the HDMI input.

[richardfinegold]

An interesting thread. Is this more record label snake oil, to make us part with cash anew for records we already own? Or can we really hear a difference in hi-res? Like when trying to describe a health issue to a doctor ('what kind of pain is it?'), words seem poorly suited to the task of talking about what we think we hear in hi-res: 'fuller', 'more detailed', etc. The experts on this R4 discussion fared no better in saying what they thought they heard. When listening blind, they ended up choosing a lo-res file!

Can I hear a difference between 16/44 and 24/96 and 24/192? I'm just not sure. Sometimes I believe I can, when I know it's that type of file I'm listening to, but I've never done A/B testing.

Throp, I own several recordings in both Red Book and (various) High Res Media, and yes, there is a difference. I am currently enjoying Karajan's Mahler 5 in Blu Ray. Compared to the Red Book version (a very good DG mid 70s recording) there is greater hall ambience, a certain richness in the strings, the opening trumpet part has more bite, etc. Would I perhaps be fooled in a blind test? On a given day, yes, as the original recording is no slouch. This Blu Ray isn't essential, more of a luxury.

[Thropplenoggin]

We did discuss this before but I was wondering if in the interim anyone had taken the plunge and started investing in DSD downloads and the technology required. The audiophile magazines, such as Hi Fi News and stereophile, report increasing releases of DSD DACs. I have to admit that apropos of Throps' post, I am a sucker for new formats and have been persuaded (conned?) into repurchasing favorite recordings in various formats.
My curiousity has been peaked by Sony issue of a DSD Hard Drive (1 TB) that was on the cover of both of the aforementioned audio mags. Apparently it converts PCM to DSD on the fly. I am also trying to digitalize the mass of my red book CDs for space saving purposes and trying to figure out the easiest and best sounding way of doing this.
Mytek Audio has a DAC that will play DSD and takes firewire input. It was developed by the man that Sony had contracted to develop DSD for their SACD. It goes for about $1500 here and is readily available in the UK (most of the reviews that I have seen are from British writers). It uses the same Sabre ESS 32 bit chip that my Oppo uses. I was considering it until I decided to resurrect my firewire DAC.
I think firewire is a much better medium than usb, which was developed mainly for printers, and is not meant to transmit audio or video. All the attempts to improve usb that I have heard are only partially successful.
I use macs but found myself ina microsoft store yesterday, across the aisle from an Apple store, and could not believe how cheap some of the PCs have become. An Acer model with 4 RAM and 500 TB hard drive that ouputted HDMI was going for $300! Many DACs now feature HDMI inputs (including my Oppo).
HDMI has generally been a high jitter interface but sometimes these DACs get good reviews because they accept only the audio content and jettison the video, which is suppossed to reduce the jitter. My wife and I both have to do professional education related programs at home and sometimes these programs won't run on Macs and I wind up having to transport a Windows laptop from work for this, but it's a pain. Maybe I'll just buy this little laptop and fool around with the HDMI input.

No offence, Richard, as I enjoyed your reply, but one can see the appeal of a turntable for many when trying to parse the above. The language of the digital world is, I expect, a deterrent for many, as it appears so abstruse. If one is even tempted to dip a toe in such waters, it can be incredibly confusing and seemingly liable to change, so that once you've got the hang of MP3s, along comes FLAC, Hi-Res Studio Masters, and now DSD...and all the equipment - cables, DACs, servers, and what not that goes with it. A vinyl disc and a record player has never looked more appealing, and I write this as a 36-year-old!

I was demo-ing speakers recently, and they were wired up to some whizz-bang Naim Unitiserve (or summat), all operated via an iPad. I found swiping through thousands of files on an app dispiriting, especially noting the battery indicator decline before my eyes and thinking, 'oh great, another item you have to charge just to be able to listen to your music!'

[johnb]

I can't say anything sensible about DSD as I have no experience of it. However, as far as digitising you CDs is concerned do bear in mind that they are 16/44.1 PCM so I can't see there s anything to gain in converting them to a different format.

[richardfinegold]

No offence, Richard, as I enjoyed your reply, but one can see the appeal of a turntable for many when trying to parse the above. The language of the digital world is, I expect, a deterrent for many, as it appears so abstruse. If one is even tempted to dip a toe in such waters, it can be incredibly confusing and seemingly liable to change, so that once you've got the hang of MP3s, along comes FLAC, Hi-Res Studio Masters, and now DSD...and all the equipment - cables, DACs, servers, and what not that goes with it. A vinyl disc and a record player has never looked more appealing, and I write this as a 36-year-old!
I was demo-ing speakers recently, and they were wired up to some whizz-bang Naim Unitiserve (or summat), all operated via an iPad. I found swiping through thousands of files on an app dispiriting, especially noting the battery indicator decline before my eyes and thinking, 'oh great, another item you have to charge just to be able to listen to your music!'

I still listen to vinyl, and have invested last year in a Clearaudio Concept tt and mc cartridge and a new phono pre amp. That would be a subject for a different thread, but in general, I just don't use it much and tend to gaze at it with some guilt.
My biggest problem with vinyl is the poor quality of what to play on it. I used to work in a record shop about the time when you were born, and we used to send back a large part of the inventory as unplayable--when it was brand new. I am less than thrilled when I go into a second hand store and find these same records, knowing that they have been previously owned and are more than 4 decades old, and robably have been spending years in a garage or an attic before they were sold to the shop.
My wife was at an Estate sale in our neighborhood yesterday. She was thrilled to see some lps and bought me an RCA recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto, Szerying/Monteux, for $1. After the best cleaning I could give it I had to give up listening after 5 minutes. It sounded like someone was eating potato chips on the radio intercom of a WW II bomber with flak exploding all around.
I am not a fan of Computer Audio but I need to downsize my CD collection which is threatening to engulf my entire house. I am digitalizing Red Book CDs that
I rarely listen to but do not want to part with. This process is not going fast because I wind up playing many of the discs, enjoying them ,listening to them again, perhaps investigating other recordings by the performers or the Composer....It is a Labor of Love. Not the Computer part, however. I would much rather listen to a spinning polycarbonate disc then become conversant with digital technology, but acquiring some digital expertise is a necessary evil.
Listening to Ben Zander/Philharmonia Mahler 5 via my Mac Air feeding the firewire dac (thunderbolt to firewire adapter duly purchased at the Apple store yesterday) as I write. This clearly bests the usb dac. Maybe Computer Audio won't be so bad after all.

[richardfinegold]

I can't say anything sensible about DSD as I have no experience of it. However, as far as digitising you CDs is concerned do bear in mind that they are 16/44.1 PCM so I can't see there s anything to gain in converting them to a different format.

You would think, but there are claims, which I can't evaluate, the converting the PCM to DSD does improve things.
When I first heard about upsampling, I thought it was nonsense, but after my first upsampling dac seemed to bring out a wealth of detail from every standard CD that I played, I became a believer. Sometimes you have to go with what your ears hear regardless of how illogical it may seem.

[Thropplenoggin]

I still listen to vinyl, and have invested last year in a Clearaudio Concept tt and mc cartridge and a new phono pre amp. That would be a subject for a different thread, but in general, I just don't use it much and tend to gaze at it with some guilt.
My biggest problem with vinyl is the poor quality of what to play on it. I used to work in a record shop about the time when you were born, and we used to send back a large part of the inventory as unplayable--when it was brand new. I am less than thrilled when I go into a second hand store and find these same records, knowing that they have been previously owned and are more than 4 decades old, and robably have been spending years in a garage or an attic before they were sold to the shop.
My wife was at an Estate sale in our neighborhood yesterday. She was thrilled to see some lps and bought me an RCA recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto, Szerying/Monteux, for $1. After the best cleaning I could give it I had to give up listening after 5 minutes. It sounded like someone was eating potato chips on the radio intercom of a WW II bomber with flak exploding all around.
I am not a fan of Computer Audio but I need to downsize my CD collection which is threatening to engulf my entire house. I am digitalizing Red Book CDs that
I rarely listen to but do not want to part with. This process is not going fast because I wind up playing many of the discs, enjoying them ,listening to them again, perhaps investigating other recordings by the performers or the Composer....It is a Labor of Love. Not the Computer part, however. I would much rather listen to a spinning polycarbonate disc then become conversant with digital technology, but acquiring some digital expertise is a necessary evil.
Listening to Ben Zander/Philharmonia Mahler 5 via my Mac Air feeding the firewire dac (thunderbolt to firewire adapter duly purchased at the Apple store yesterday) as I write. This clearly bests the usb dac. Maybe Computer Audio won't be so bad after all.

Thanks for your reply, Richard, which made for an amusing and enlightening read.

I don't own a turntable, but having visited various forums before purchasing some new hi-fi gear, I did encounter a lot of love for this medium. I see from your witty line ('crisp-munching on the intercom amidst the flak') that CD remains the more preferable medium. I've had various new-ish (18-month old) laptops die on me, as well as hard-disk drives, and so the thought of backing-up files hardly fills me with security. Add to this the legal aspect of downloads ('You might be surprised to find that in most cases you are effectively leasing the content, not buying it.'), and I guess I'll be relying on the silver disc awhile yet. That said, I do now own a Digital Audio Player and have dabbled in FLACs, WAVs and Hi-Res (reminds me of a Tom Wolfe essay on 'digibabble')...like you say, a necessary evil.

[Bryn]

... My wife was at an Estate sale in our neighborhood yesterday. She was thrilled to see some lps and bought me an RCA recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto, Szerying/Monteux, for $1 ...

How can it be that this wonderful recording (sure, the LP pressing were sadly unreliable) can be out of the catalogue at the moment? It was my introduction to the concert, and remains a firm favourite studio 'performance'.

[richardfinegold]

How can it be that this wonderful recording (sure, the LP pressing were sadly unreliable) can be out of the catalogue at the moment? It was my introduction to the concert, and remains a firm favourite studio 'performance'.

I was unaware of it's existence until yesterday. IAccording to the liner notes of the lp (presumably a reissue) it won the Gran Prix du Disque. Now you've gone and made me want to try to clean the lp again...

[richardfinegold]

Thanks for your reply, Richard, which made for an amusing and enlightening read.

I don't own a turntable, but having visited various forums before purchasing some new hi-fi gear, I did encounter a lot of love for this medium. I see from your witty line ('crisp-munching on the intercom amidst the flak') that CD remains the more preferable medium. I've had various new-ish (18-month old) laptops die on me, as well as hard-disk drives, and so the thought of backing-up files hardly fills me with security. Add to this the legal aspect of downloads ('You might be surprised to find that in most cases you are effectively leasing the content, not buying it.'), and I guess I'll be relying on the silver disc awhile yet. That said, I do now own a Digital Audio Player and have dabbled in FLACs, WAVs and Hi-Res (reminds me of a Tom Wolfe essay on 'digibabble')...like you say, a necessary evil.

Sadly, 18 months old is middle aged for a computer. I've rarely had a Windows PC go more than 2 years and many that didn't make it to it's first anniversary.
I've almost never had a CD player die on me. The two that did had seen plenty of service and were buried with full honors.
Universal disc players that will play SACD and Blu Ray--and many with digital inputs so that they can double as DACs--are now very inexpensive. Great sounding models can be had from Pioneer, Oppo, Cambridge Audio, Yamaha, and Marantz for under $500. I'm listening to Pletnev/Tchaikovsky Pathetique on Pentatone as I write this. It couldn't be easier--pop the disc tray, put in the SACD, and High Resolution sound fills the room. No computers to torment me.
My goal is to clear as much storage space by digitalizing as many non essential red book cds as possible andthen fill the shelves with high res polycarbonate media.

[johnb]

Sadly, 18 months old is middle aged for a computer. I've rarely had a Windows PC go more than 2 years and many that didn't make it to it's first anniversary.

Crikey, I have a laptop that is 10 years old and still going strong (though I rarely use it these days). It is an IBM Thinkpad though.