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Re: DSD vs. PCM preferences.

Posted by audioNeil (A) on January 17, 2007 at 17:02:08

In Reply to: DSD vs. PCM preferences. posted by Phil W on January 15, 2007 at 16:40:29:

My DAD disks sound amazing to me. I haven't heard SACD on a good source -- just a Denon 2910, and I wasn't impressed with the high frequencies, though the mids were awesome.

Why are we quibling over the mathematical representation of the data? Given a sufficiently-high-quality mix (I can do 24/384 PCM, or full quality DSD), it shouldn't make any difference. It's just numbers, and music is a waveform anyway. PCM is the easiest way to mix.

The problem comes at the recording and playback points. Which electronics is capable of the least audible distortions (or perhaps adds the most pleasing distortions, if you are into that sort of thing)? Also, consumer playback is a mix-down of the original master quality (at least with DSD).

There is theory to say that DSD may be better at preventing digital nasties, but on the other hand, there is noise in the DSD high frequencies that may smear the sound in some electronics. Certainly in my Denon 2910, the pure DSD playback had fuzzy high frequencies, which was fixed when converting to PCM in the player. The poor DSD high-frequencies had to be electronics related (filters?), not a property of DSD itself, since the sound started as the same SACD stream. Some people may have liked the smearing, but to me it was a distraction, and made instruments sound less real. I wish I could have heard SACD on a better player.

I love my DAD disks! So, I think there really isn't a problem with either format. The problem is with CDs! I know that DADs were killed because the studios wanted copy protected SACD and DVD-A. But, they shot themselves (or the audiophiles) in the foot. We could all be listening to 24/96 audio right now, through PCs, and DVD players. There could even have been a high-res lossless-compressed portable MLP format for our portable players. Music could have been higher quality for us all.

Oh well, the public just wants smaller files so they can fit 10000 songs on their portable MP3 player .....

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