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In Reply to: You can't....except... posted by theaudiohiffle on April 6, 2007 at 19:19:59:
Perhaps my question was moot. From this discussion it is not obvious that the conversion from 1 bit DSD to multi-bit PCM "hurts the sound" as I thought people were saying.So it doesn't matter whether DSD is converted to PCM?
If it does matter, specifically which players are better because they don't (besides some Sonys). How about Dennon or Yamaha or do you have to get up to Esoteric or Ayre or something >$15K?
Follow Ups:
What it means is that Sony tried to invent a new format because the patents were expiring on CD. That was a billion dollar a year revenue stream that they didn't want to see go away."DSD" has an advantage over Redbook CD in that it doesn't require "brickwall" filters, either on the record side or the playback side. This is why it generally sounds better than CD.
But it has a disadvantage in that it is completely unsuited for modern recording techniques. Something recorded in DSD is kind of like a "direct to disk" LP. Once you record it, you can't do any processing without turning into PCM. And *all* modern recordings do some kind of mixing, EQ, reverb, or *something*.
So for "DSD" to sound really good, it is really pretty much limited to really good transfers of really good sounding analog tapes. But you will never see a modern pop recording made with pure "DSD".
So Sony really painted themselves into a corner with this one.
As far as the hardware goes, the general consensus is that machines that convert to PCM don't make a really good SACD sound as good as a machine that doesn't convert to PCM.
But there are so many other factors that affect the sound quality of a player that I would not use that as the sole basis for choosing a player. There's no substitute for listening, preferably in your own system with discs that you know and love.
"As far as the hardware goes, the general consensus is that machines that convert to PCM don't make a really good SACD sound as good as a machine that doesn't convert to PCM."That is the consensus but I am not sure how much of it is based on comparative listening and how much is based on preconceptions. I know I have not listened to some of the high-dollar machines that convert DSD into PCM on my system, where I can make an objective evaluation.
There is little doubt, IMO, that SACD sound is far superior to 44/16 RBCD's, But high res is high res. On a theoritical basis, if the conversion from SACD to PCM occurs at a much higher resolution, say 192 Hz, should we still expect a reduction in sound quality? If so, why? Do the additional electronics required for the conversion automatically create a performance penalty or could the sound be enhanced in some way by the conversion?
I hope your rehabilitation is going well. I was in a pretty severe bike accident in 2004 (although not as severe as yours). I was in the hospital for nine days and it took me six months to completely recover. I will be setting off the alarms at airports with all the metal in my hip for years to come. But I am back riding. I hope your recovery goes as smoothly as mine.
< < On a theoretical basis, if the conversion from SACD to PCM occurs at a much higher resolution, say 192 kHz, should we still expect a reduction in sound quality? > >On a theoretical basis, no.
But in the real world, it seems to happen. When we were developing the C-5xe, we tried a few different algorithms to convert "DSD" to PCM. The best of them was *almost* as good as the straight "DSD", but not quite. I would guess that if we spent a lot of time working on it, we could come up with something that didn't degrade the "DSD" sound. But there wasn't really any point to do so. Plus the conversion utilized a huge amount of computing power from the FPGA we use.
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