|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
108.220.54.45
In Reply to: RE: Is DSD really better sounding, and simpler, than PCM? posted by Tom Schuman on January 28, 2015 at 04:26:17
2X DSD is the best I've heard.
CD rips and Hi Rez PCM and DSD Downloads converted w/Audiogate, and On the Fly w/Sony HAP Z1.
I've listened with Korg DSDAC 100, Marantz NA 8005, Mytek 192/DSD Dac, and Sony HAP Z1.
Most recently I ripped a CD w/ iTunes, incl error correction, converted it to 2X DSD,
sounds great, and better than 44.1/16 and PCM Upsampled to 32/192.
The PS Audio is another price class altogether.
Mytek and Sony are really great, as is Audiogate 3!
Follow Ups:
Why are we starting this again. Tom, you simply have to decide for yourself. I had the mytek and bought a bunch of DSD downloads. Sounded nice. I now have a Metrum Hex that does not do DSD. Playing Redbook CD's it sounds much better than the Mytek. Sold the Mytek and stopped wasting money buying expensive downloads
Alan
I have only heard DVD-A & SACD from the Oppo BDP-83, but after that and other DACs, I am much happier listening to CDs from a Metrum Octave. The enjoyment increase goes well beyond the price difference. So, to me, although SACD has something about it that I like (only when mastered well), a good PCM DAC is a better value to me. I have some SACDs that sound no better than the CDs, but all CDs sound like music on my Octave (which I cannot say about my SACDs). The Octave taught me that CD is sufficient resolution. It also taught me (along w/ a Russian NOS DAC) that NOS R2R is way more musical (and less "digital") than the newer, higher profit DAC chip architectures which I now see as somewhat fraudulent. I do recall at least one poster hear who heard the Octave in a store system and was not impressed. Unless one is sensitive to the differences between the modern, cheaper style of chips and the R2R type, then extended listening may be required for those differences to become more obvious.
Although it contradicts what I expect based on theory, I even prefer CDs to DVD-A on my Octave and Oppo (Gaucho, for one). I cannot explain that, but I go by sound/enjoyment, not theory.
Of course, others can clarify that I am mixing NOS with R2R, but I have not heard them separated.
I would like to hear more from those who have heard NOS/R2R and prefer the delta-sigma DACs since I suspect that this difference is still mostly an audiophile secret since the R2R DACs are so much harder to come by. I also suspect that many may not have learned that what sounds good in 5-60 minutes of listening may not sound good over the longer term. Let me know if I'm wrong there. Of course, my test of a good system is one that makes me want to listen to a whole album or more. Others may only want sound good enough for 10 minutes - I don't know.
It seems to me the industry is continually hyping changes in formats as 'improvements' when this is mainly a sales tactic. It's a little like the whole 'PC audio' thing. I have never perceived a clear improvement oder well mastered CD using a PC and an outboard USB dac, regardless of the sample rate, and I challenge anyone to reliably identify the difference in a blind test using a decent CD player.
Basically, the gadget freaks in the industry have to sell product, but after seeing so many rounds of the 'latest and greatest' I'm skeptical.
Hell, I was pretty happy with HDCD or XRCD, and that was 15 years ago.
On the whole, though, I'm not ashamed to admit that I can't afford any more audio equipment, so I have to be happy with what I have regardless.
Why would you make a conclusion about FORMAT, based on products that clearly reside in different price segments?
If anything, you would need DSD DAC that's MORE expensive, than NOS DAC without DSD support, to make it a fair game.
so price determines quality? Sometimes but not always.
Alan
N/T
The Mytek Stereo192-DSD does not sound good when playing 44/16 music. It sounds better when HQPlayer upsamples 44/16 to 88/32, better still when upsampled to 176/32, and better still when upsampled to DSD128. (Upsampled to DSD64 sounds slightly softer than upsampled to 88/32 or 176/32, something that is not quite right. DSD64 or DSD128 playback of pure DSD recordings produces the best sound of all.
Another aspect of the Mytek is that it sounds best when the analog volume control is bypassed. I send its output to my amplifiers (powered monitors) and so I need to use a volume control. I use the digital volume mode that the Mytek provides. The Mytek has many options and features and unfortunately it takes some effort to figure out which ones produce the best sound. For example, I found it necessary to open up the case and add the jumpers so as to reduce the output level by 6 dB.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Hi there, in a long diatribe against SACD, on www.iar-80.com, Moncrieff pretty much slams the DSD model, saying the sound is more homogenized and less informative in the treble, and saying the amount of information is actually less than in the PCM system; DSD is a one bit system that mangles the signal to come close to 20 bit resolution.
I'm not an engineer, but I've never been overly impressed overall with SACD sound, there's less 'there' there, it's phasey sounding, and it's not as immediate and punchy as PCM.
His main argument seems to be based on equating the number of samples per half cycle with bit depth, which is a laymans misunderstanding of sampling. From that basis, he concludes that DSD has 6-bit equivalent resolution at 20 KHz, 7-bit at 10 KHz, etc. down to 12-bit at 312 Hz. This conclusion is nonsense. The equivalent resolution is a function of the noise shaping curve, which was optimized to theoretically provide better than 24-bit PCM performance up to 20 KHz, with a huge amount of ultrasonic noise above that as a consequence.
He also misunderstands noise shaping and confuses it with signal averaging, which leads him to claim that it destroys transients via averaging them out. This is also nonsense. Noise shaping filters the quantization error, not the signal. The transient response of a system using noise shaping will be commensurate with it's bandwidth, same as without noise shaping. DSD produces impulse responses and square waves like you would expect from its bandwidth. They look similar to what you get with 24/192 PCM, except at low levels they are fuzzed up with ultrasonic noise.
I would like to believe your analysis is correct. However, you should look at some of Thorsten's posts. This is a complex subject and "simplistic" analysis can sometimes be more useful than more sophisticated analysis, especially if the sophisticated analysis is made by people with skin in the game. This is not a simple issue. There is little published literature on the theory of DSD and those that exists say that the 1 bit format is flawed because it can not be properly dithered. DSD can work well, but it depends on a lot of "secret sauce" algorithms.
I tried to prove Thorston wrong. I failed. I was unable to convert a 44/16 Khz PCM signal to DSD and back to PCM and get close to 16 bits of accuracy, let alone the 20 bits claimed by Philips. I considered the peak errors, not a bunch of "averages". I was unable to get 16 bit accuracy even starting out with a DC signal. (I did this to avoid filtering issues.) I used a published DSD modulator. What I am saying is that the Philips information was marketing spin, not technical reality.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
To the extent that Moncrief uses theory to show that DSD64 is not as good in the treble, I think he is off base. Furthermore, I don't think it is possible to understand what is going on without a lot of heavy math, which explains how dither works. Moncrief doesn't get into this, nor would this be possible in a popular newsletter.
In practice, I put DSD64 roughly at 176/24 in terms of subjective sound quality, i.e. way above 44/16. However, this applies only to pure DSD recordings, not ones made by upsampling PCM, of which there are many examples. I try to listen to formats identical with the masters to the extent possible, because conversions to/from PCM and DSD are generally a poor idea. (Comment applies to DSD64, not to DSD128 or higher.)
Incidentally, Moncrief was my audio buddy in high school. We used to lug our tape decks, preamps, amps and KLH-6 speakers around the campus of our school so we could listen to symphonic music in large rooms. We were both introduced to Hi-Fi by none other than E. Bradley Meyer.
Note: DSD was a Sony/Philips marketing buzzword. The reality is that DSD64 is nothing but 2822.4/1 PCM. As such it benefits from a high sample rate, requiring no anti-alias filters on record and minimal filtering on playback. However, aggressive noise shaping is required and there is a lot of "secret sauce" to get good sound out of the 1 bit format.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
to get DSD on IMac 10.9.5. USB didn't work on DSD.
Also have to use Internal Jumpers And the Volume Trim to lower the rather high 5 Volt Output,
as recommended by the designer.
Also took a couple of weeks to break in, also as recommended in Manual.
Enjoy.
PS, I'm not Tom.
He,He,He,
Depending on how well recorded the music actually is, "16/44.1" through
the Hex is only a bunch of numbers.
I don't think I have an "SACD" that doesn't sound better as a "rip" played
off a Hard Drive through my Hex. That famous DAC chip that many of the
$1500 to $2000 Oversampling DACs or SACD players aren't nearly as resolving sounding,if listening to Acoustic music is a top priority to you.
I would goes as far as to say the Hex has to be the DAC of choice if you
spend most of your time listening to Classical Music.I haven't experienced
any other DAC that is Analog sound as this.
There's really no such thing as "just 16/44.1 (It's more a matter of other DACs are 'serious underachievers' at resolving this bit rate),I can say I'm ok with "16/44.1" being called lossless for the first time
I paid $2500. I have 5000 redbook cd's. I also stream from Tidal, Classics on Line HD and Spotify. By the way classics on line which is provided by Naxos streams Hi-Rez up to 24/192. In streaming a 24/192 file I got over 3000BPS. Sounds great thru my Metrum Hex. If you have not heard the Hex your comment doesn't mean anything. Would you pay $16000 for the Berlely reference dac?
Alan
...but what's the point of huge file sizes and expensive DACs when we're going to be diverting our attention with work on the PC?
The whole download/streaming scene doesn't do it for me.
Again, these are all cost-saving measures, not improvements. Now, archiving and storing is one thing, but superior sound?
The Metrum sounds good because it's retro and overkill (quadruple DACs and no oversampling) not because it came out in 2012 or 2013.
My point was, it is too bad if we have to put up with another round of : "we now have to all start buying DSD DACs in order to hear music at all" because frankly, I'm out of pocket. And how many generations of early adopters are there left?
Actually, the most important thing to my enjoyment of listening to any format digital music has been how resolved it sounds after it's been converted back to analog.
If I am aware of "digital sound contouring" in the sound, the whole process of what happened up to the point of my listening was a fail as
far as I'm concerned. There are any number of ways to process the music up to the point I've spoken of ,but they are all really just a means to get the signal to the step of becoming a listenable format that our ears recognize as analog sound. There has to be DAC at the end of the processing chain or there will be no music to hear.
Everything may work without spending extra $$$ on a Dedicated DAC , but it
comes down to how resolving do you need your music to sound ? There's a line between what the cost of something is in regard to how much value you
will derive from it,that only you can determine.
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: