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DSD vs. PCM tests at Universal's Emil Berliner Studios

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Posted by Mathias Myka on October 1, 2003 at 05:12:11

The September, 2003 edition of "Production Partner", a German magazine for studio technology (http://www.production-partner.de), has a fairly interesting interview with Rainer Maillard, head of the recording service department of Emil Berliner Studios (http://www.emil-berliner-studios.com). They do most classical recordings for Universal's Deutsche Grammophon label, and also seem to be owned by Deutsche Grammophon.

For two of the most recent SACD productions of DG, the studio did a parallel recording in DSD and PCM (96/24) technology, and made extensive comparisons between the two digital audio formats. One of these recordings is the SACD production of Gustav Mahler's 2nd symphony, played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Gilbert Kaplan.
If you have this SACD, you may have noticed that be booklet says: recorded in PCM 96 kHz/24 bit.

As I find this interview quite interesting, I have tried to translate those parts relevant to the never-ending SACD- vs. DVD-Audio/PCM discussion. Here we go:

**********
[About audible differences]
"When comparing the parallel recordings [i.e. DSD vs. PCM], several things need to be considered. One example: when I compared the main microphone [tracks] of the Mahler Surround Production in DSD and PCM, there was a notable difference. Later I discovered that the sensitivity of the D/A converters in conjunction with the monitoring unit had a certain tolerance, which was about 0.3 to 0.6 dB. When playing back through five speakers, this was audible. After adjusting the levels of all channels, the difference was practically inaudible."

[About blind tests]
"We did A/B/X blind tests, which again and again without mercy showed the difference between reality and imagination. To most of our colleagues and guests it was impossible to notice a difference and thus make a judgment. I think that's a positive result. It shows that DSD is positioned on a very high quality level."

[About parameters for high end recordings]
"The question is not about format. To produce a high end audio recording, completely different parameters have to be considered. How do I select musicians, recording venue, instruments, positioning, microphones, cables, converters, mixing desk, outboard equipment etc.? How do I combine these elements? If I move a microphone just one inch from it's location, the differences will be greater [than between DSD and PCM]. I could hire a different piano tuner, then it will sound different again, or change the room temperature. To me that's fascinating."

[About DSD's impulse reproduction]
"Because DSD uses 64x oversamling as compared to the CD, measurement results for impulse reproduction are very good. But such a measurement signal will hardly ever be encountered in practice. "

[About DSD artefacts]
"A one bit data stream by itself has a s/n ratio of only 6 dB. This noise energy, by means of noise shaping, can be moved into a frequency range where it no longer interferes. As a result, you get good s/n ratios of about 120 dB in the human hearing range. We took a closer look at the increasing noise above 20 kHz, and we are not sure if this noise can be seen as an artefact or effect, possibly even as a positive sound effect. [...] One very revealing experiment was playing back a 30 kHz sine wave with varispeed at one tenth of the original speed. By using this trick, you can hear the artefacts at 3 kHz, which otherwise wouldn't be audible to us. Here, a difference between DSD and PCM showed itself, and this also can be measured."

[About archive media]
"With regard to our archive, the answer [derived from these experiments] is clear: on a master recording, there is no place for noise, as it cannot be removed later. So we have decided to use high resolution PCM with 96 or 192 kHz sampling rate as our archive medium."

**********

Mathias

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