Is it "whats best forum" , or what's more expensive

[opus111]

Yes, I'd think the analog output of the dac chip exits via 'evil' LTP containing opamps, but a quick check of the datasheet reveals that the ability to disable the digital filtering is built into the dac chip.

I take it that you're drawing no distinction between analog and digital filtering? I made no comment on the digital filtering, opamps are decidedly analog in nature from where I'm standing.

Regarding your assertion that Marshall says 'there's no ambience retrieval', what was actually said is -


So your takeaway from that quote is that the Ear Acute III given its topology is incapable of ambiance retrieval. Having lived with the Acute and also having the pleasure of hearing Dan Wright's excellent modded Sony, which IMO offer excellent ambiance retrieval, I assume that the last line is a caveat, and perhaps the recording itself lacks the ambiance.

Fair enough that the recording may well have been lacking. My takeaway wasn't what you're claiming it was though. Try again?

 

[opus111]

which explains alot. how can you (optimally) compare PCM and dsd without hearing the analog source of the files?

I'm not doing direct comparison between source material and transfer I admit. So what's your suggestion for how listening to the source will assist me?

i'm not the judge and jury of what is or is not a proper dsd-PCM comparison. but having the analog source is helpful over time and lots of samples to get a feel for what is happening.

That suits you and you have the kit to hand, then more power to you

you may need a better SACD player/dsd dac to hear optimal dsd/SACD. my viewpoint of dsd verses PCM is 180 degrees opposite of yours. but i'm basing my views on my analog tape and vinyl as the truth.

I don't consder analog tape or vinyl to be 'the truth'. Perhaps that accounts for part of the difference. Of course when the recording was originally captured to analog tape that's the most 'truthful' but I also listen to digital recordings. I rather suspect that the modulation noise of analog tape is similar in nature to the noise modulation inherent in DSD - it softens the original. I certainly hear the difference in dynamics between well digitally recorded piano, and analog recorded piano.

 

[opus111]

Count me as a DSD believer...

That's an interesting piece of the jigsaw which does nothing to falsify my hypothesis that DSD is akin to a religion

 

[bbb]

I think Opus or anyone else will find it hard to convince others to change what their experiences have informed them about what is better. The problem is our audio experiences are always different and we inherently listen differently. There is no standards wrt to hearing, irregardless of what the objectivists try to tell us. And most have a deeply held pet preference, be it flat frequency response, room treatment, tubes, ss, etc until they experience something new to the contrary. Recently, mine is absolute polarity.

I started with analog, went to RBCD, became an early adopter of SACD using Allan Wright's mod and now am firmly back with RBCD using an NOS Dac. Although I will admit that most of my equipment are not that high end, I went from formats to formats because I hear an improvement each time. I hear problems with Sacd and Hi-Res that others don't. Very likely I am wrong and they are right but I heard what I heard. Hearing is a funny thing, you don't hear things until it is pointed out to you. So is our mind and sight. A good book to read is Bounce by Matthew Syed. In it it explore a few ideas that is relevant to our hobby.

I once went to a demo done with a playback design MPD5 fed by Mac. Let's just say the rest of the equipment is rather high end owned by an internationally renowned audiophile. There was a comparison of RBCD, SACD and High res PCM of 24/96 and 24/192. Basically he used the SACD as master, convert it to PCM 16 bit, 24/96 and 24/192 using Audio Nirvana IIRC. While almost everyone preferred the 24/192, I found problems with both the high res and SACD. The SACD was noisy (this is what the audiophile was trying to show) but while 24/192 was much more quiet and gained macro depth and air, it has lost body and micro depth (instruments and voices became 1 dimensional) and while it was airy, it was to me overly airy.

So, like I said, everyone listen differently.

 

[opus111]

I think Opus or anyone else will find it hard to convince others to change what their experiences have informed them about what is better.

That's cool because my intention isn't to convince others, rather suggest alternative experiences to those who are still DSD believers. Bruce says he's going to be setting up his NOS DAC soon - its only the listening experience itself which is convincing, not any words on a forum like this. I am looking forward to his findings.

I started with analog, went to RBCD, became an early adopter of SACD using Allan Wright's mod and now am firmly back with RBCD using an NOS Dac. Although I will admit that most of my equipment are not that high end, I went from formats to formats because I hear an improvement each time. I hear problems with Sacd and Hi-Res that others don't. Very likely I am wrong and they are right but I heard what I heard.

I suspect you're not wrong in hearing problems with hires - my position is they're implementation problems, not intrinsic ones. Problems with SACD though are intrinsic to the format - its noisy, as you yourself heard.

 

[Orb]

Opus,
I think some missed or did not see this relevent in the context of the DSD statement; a very important part of your earlier post IMO, that being;

Its not that the ambience isn't reproduced, just that its being masked by additional noise

I think how this is dealt with by certain components (core functions of DAC chips-algorithms-etc) means experiences could be very mixed, does not help in terms of a high standard across the board and does not necessarily resolve some of the behaviour of DSD.

Cheers
Orb

 

[MylesBAstor]

I'm not doing direct comparison between source material and transfer I admit. So what's your suggestion for how listening to the source will assist me?

Simple. The digital copy should be an exact copy, warts and all, of the original analog recording. News flash: It ain't. The closest I've heard is DSD.

Otherwise you have no idea of what are you comparing?

 

[MylesBAstor]

I think Opus or anyone else will find it hard to convince others to change what their experiences have informed them about what is better. The problem is our audio experiences are always different and we inherently listen differently. There is no standards wrt to hearing, irregardless of what the objectivists try to tell us. And most have a deeply held pet preference, be it flat frequency response, room treatment, tubes, ss, etc until they experience something new to the contrary. Recently, mine is absolute polarity.

I started with analog, went to RBCD, became an early adopter of SACD using Allan Wright's mod and now am firmly back with RBCD using an NOS Dac. Although I will admit that most of my equipment are not that high end, I went from formats to formats because I hear an improvement each time. I hear problems with Sacd and Hi-Res that others don't. Very likely I am wrong and they are right but I heard what I heard. Hearing is a funny thing, you don't hear things until it is pointed out to you. So is our mind and sight. A good book to read is Bounce by Matthew Syed. In it it explore a few ideas that is relevant to our hobby.

I once went to a demo done with a playback design MPD5 fed by Mac. Let's just say the rest of the equipment is rather high end owned by an internationally renowned audiophile. There was a comparison of RBCD, SACD and High res PCM of 24/96 and 24/192. Basically he used the SACD as master, convert it to PCM 16 bit, 24/96 and 24/192 using Audio Nirvana IIRC. While almost everyone preferred the 24/192, I found problems with both the high res and SACD. The SACD was noisy (this is what the audiophile was trying to show) but while 24/192 was much more quiet and gained macro depth and air, it has lost body and micro depth (instruments and voices became 1 dimensional) and while it was airy, it was to me overly airy.

So, like I said, everyone listen differently.

Basically, you didn't really hear DSD, 2XDSD, etc. (yes, I see talk of even higher numbers) because SACD is converted to PCM.

 

[opus111]

Simple. The digital copy should be an exact copy, warts and all, of the original analog recording. News flash: It ain't. The closest I've heard is DSD.

Why shouldn't the original be a digital recording? A DSD of an original PCM can never be an exact copy which rather negates the main advantage of digital to my mind.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Why shouldn't the original be a digital recording? A DSD of an original PCM can never be an exact copy which rather negates the main advantage of digital to my mind.

I'm talking about, as Michael mentioned, the original analog tape.

 

[opus111]

I'm talking about, as Michael mentioned, the original analog tape.

And when the original isn't analog?

 

[Orb]

Has Bel Canto/John Stronczer changed their stance on DSD or still doing a wait and see approach while looking at how some of the DSD traits are handled by modern DAC chipset manufacturers supporting it?

Cheers
Orb

 

[asiufy]

And when the original isn't analog?

Then you need to record the same thing twice, once in DSD and again in PCM, because if you convert it, all bets are off.


alexandre

 

[opus111]

That isn't of any help where the master tape is PCM digital which was the case I'm curious about.

 

[Orb]

Isnt there two challenges if discussing DSD?
One is processing "pure DSD" in the studio, sort of reminds me of native SACD which was converted to PCM for editing and back to SACD.....
Is native DSD processing possible now and will it become widespread with studios?
If not this can cause additional headaches (leaving it at that because pages could be taken up argue it does/does not ).

The other relates to the chip architecture-function and algorithms and challenges DSD brings to the D/A stage consumer audio products.
BTW I should also mention Linn are in the same thought as Bel Canto with regards to point 2, and Linn staff also have touched on point 1 in the past on their own forums.
They are not the only ones, seems pretty split to me.
The problem I see is that even high rez PCM is not necessarily always of great quality with issues introduced into a fair few released recordings; Hi Fi News has touched a lot on this and has measurements backing this up showing it is still not universally adequate and consistent even with studios that has history with high resolution studio recordings.
What hope is there then for ubiquitous high quality DSD then?

Cheers
Orb

 

[MarinJim]

"How many angels are on the top of a needle?"

 

[bbb]

Basically, you didn't really hear DSD, 2XDSD, etc. (yes, I see talk of even higher numbers) because SACD is converted to PCM.

True but the point I am trying to make is that in every comparison, there will always be some who prefer A,B or C but who is right? Do we go back to measurements? In my example, how do you go about it to decide conclusively which format is better?

 

[rbbert]

And vice versa.

Well of course; my point was simple - there is disagreement as usual among qualified listeners and users.

 

[edorr]

Has Bel Canto/John Stronczer changed their stance on DSD or still doing a wait and see approach while looking at how some of the DSD traits are handled by modern DAC chipset manufacturers supporting it?

Cheers
Orb

I am frankly baffled by the level of interest in native DSD capable hardware, to the point that mainstream DACs manufacturers are now seriously looking at this. Why? Because this is becoming a checkbox on the funtion feature list for buyers, driven 100% by marketing hype. Sure DSD has value for guys like Mike and the odd PS3 SACD rippers and other outliers. But for the mainstream there is absolutely zero content, and no signs this is going to change anytime soon.

It seems like the audiphile community ran out of things to talk about and jumped on DSD as the next big thing... Truly astounding. All this discussion about the inherent superiority of one format over the other is completely moot in the absence of DSD content, short of demo files for audio shows and in home sound quality show off sessions. Meanwhile, in the real world music publishers keep releasing 96/24 and 192/24 Flacs, (and will eventually jump on DXD is my prediction).

 

[Orb]

I am frankly baffled by the level of interest in native DSD capable hardware, to the point that mainstream DACs manufacturers are now seriously looking at this. Why? Because this is becoming a checkbox on the funtion feature list for buyers, driven 100% by marketing hype. Sure DSD has value for guys like Mike and the odd PS3 SACD rippers and other outliers. But for the mainstream there is absolutely zero content, and no signs this is going to change anytime soon.

It seems like the audiphile community ran out of things to talk about and jumped on DSD as the next big thing... Truly astounding. All this discussion about the inherent superiority of one format over the other is completely moot in the absence of DSD content, short of demo files for audio shows and in home sound quality show off sessions. Meanwhile, in the real world music publishers keep releasing 96/24 and 192/24 Flacs, (and will eventually jump on DXD is my prediction).

I am in the same camp as you TBH.
Not sure how DSD can become a ubiquitous solution if even manufacturers are split, then it is convincing the studios (again looking tricky when someone like Linn who is both a recording studio and audio manufacturer will not adopt it), and then compounded that even PCM high rez releases (not all but worringly quite a few) can be flawed due to the mastering-processing when looking at those reviewed and then measured with bespoke tools such as at HiFI News designed to pick up on anomalies, and DSD would be more of a nightmare from a technical perspective.
It will possibly remain even more niche than SACD.
Cheers
Orb