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RE: DSD vs. 24x192 pcm

Posted by flood2 (A) on March 9, 2022 at 13:34:41

In Reply to: RE: DSD vs. 24x192 pcm posted by AbeCollins on March 4, 2022 at 14:06:17:

The DA-3000 analogue input (feeding a PCM4202) is not particularly neutral and sounds rather shut in - It's competent but not as good as alternatives including the aging Benchmark ADC1USB (ADC used is AK5394) which is more neutral IMO. I preferred to use the Benchmark as the ADC and fed the data to my DA-3000 via AES/EBU link before the DA-3000 started to have issues in writing to the memory card and the headphone amplifier packed up.
I have subsequently moved on to using the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R (ADC is AK5574) which is vastly superior to the DA-3000.
A cheaper and better alternative (IMO) to the DA-3000 is the Korg DS-DAC-10R which I also have and would be happy to use if I didn't have the RME. It uses the same PCM4202 ADC device as the DA-3000 but also does digital EQ for phono and they provide several alternative curves for vintage EQ (Columbia, Decca, NAB). Since the phono preamp is removed from the chain, one has an even more direct means to encode vinyl sources to DSD or PCM.

Putting that to one side, the PCM4202 is based on a 1 bit D-S modulator. Whether you select PCM or DSD the sampling method is identical - selecting PCM puts the data through the additional decimation module to provide the required word length and sample rate selected. If you choose a sampling rate related to a 44.1kHz base clock, then shuttling between PCM and DSD is a straightforward mathematical translation and nothing should be lost in the process. IMO the only reason to encode in DSD is if one likes the sound decoded directly in the format rather than there being any technical advantage in the coding phase:
Lipschitz has done an analysis to show that 1 bit ADCs are fundamentally flawed due to the inability to add optimal dither. The PCM4220 may well be a better ADC as that is based on a 6 bit D-S modulator (a 3 level or 4 level modulator is sufficient for optimal dither). Although the PCM4220 doesn't offer DSD encoding, that can be done with various software options.


Regards Anthony

"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats

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