XXHighEnd

Hi Peter,

I wonder what Andreas Koch had to say about the future format in digital audio, during the California Audio Show, but I can guess it must be pointing to the direction of DSD.

I believe in the coming time quite a bit of music files, in native DSD, would be available from the net. For those who would like to digitise their vinyl's in DSD there would be a lot of high level ADC hitting the market in a years time.

I can't say if the SQ is better in DSD vs PCM as I don't have the software or hardware for comparison, but I do think that it would an option one would like to possess.

I would be looking fwd to the day when you have successfully integrated DSD in XXHE & NOS1.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Arvind,

Despite what we read on the forums, I met no real dsd provocative. Only Bluecoast records but for actually no other reason than that they just use it as their 'storage' format. IMHO without real reason or augmentation and certainly not that this was a subject.

Andrews Koch did not show up (sadly).

To me as audience listening to all the sessions it is the other way around : all use pcm and each of them could point out a reason why (this is logical to me). Think like 10 recording engineers doing so (all of fame, one of them being Prof. Keith Johnson). Still it never was a real subject, not even from questions from the audience.
My conclusion : it is hyped by us forumers and we create the subject ourselves. Next a coupe of manufacturers create dsd dacs (count me in) but what to play is beyond me and maybe everybody except niche's like Bluecoast. So ... in that pro world it is just NO subject at all, like it should not be mine.

Everybody who visit the sessions is witness of this (iow not making up things) just as they are witness of the never ending talk about hires, up to boring to death. The recording engineers though, are sure that us consumers have been made totally confused by them because of not providing one format, but now they talk about 24/192 etc.

My final conclusion : the recording engineer world is on another planet.
Too hard to explain it all.

Peter

I can add one more important thing;

No consumer tool exists which can convert dsd to pcm in any decent way. I already knew this, and had confirmed by the guys who know. This makes dsd as an archiving codec useless. So only when you have a *decent* direct dsd DAC you will be able to play it back as intended. Otherwise forget it.

Regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

That's what all of us are waiting for...the best DSD DAC NOS1.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,
I have been salivating after reading your post at the australian stereo.net forum:

Posted 28 August 2013 - 11:35 PM
The upcoming DSD DAC is a totally different design which doesn't use the 1704 (don't ask :-).
Volume control is half of that design since it won't happen (or can't happen) in software while officially (ok, according to me that is) all analogue volume controls make a dead bird of the sound.
Anyway, genuinely Direct DSD and I myself am to see the merits of it.
 
Peter

If I understand you correctly we get a Phasure pure DSD DAC without DSD to PCM conversion.
That would be brilliant.
KR
Matt

I agree with Peter I've also, yet to see the merits of DSD. Conversion is a major problem and especially in the studio in order to work with the music file before we even get to hear it.

There is a lot of discussion on this subject currently in "The Computer Audiophile": http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/world%92s-first-valid-comparison-pulse-code-modulation-versus-direct-stream-digital-18636/

Also on Mark Waldrep's(Audio engineer, University lecturer) site here: http://www.realhd-audio.com/?cat=45

I have lots off SACD's which if I could rip them would be nice to play them off my computer. Can't be bothered with the Playstation 3 rip method even if I could find one.

At this point in time with all that Peter's up to its not a priority I believe. I mean I don't know where he finds the time for the half of what he achieves with PCM and Windows let alone the NOS 1 and his own hifi upgrades(new speakers last year), hifi shows.

My limited experience with DSD to PCM listening from a post at CA:


Robert

Posted 28 August 2013 - 11:35 PM
Anyway, genuinely Direct DSD and I myself am to see the merits of it.
Peter

Robert,
you can interpret Peters last sentence in his post that he is seeing the merits of genuinely Direct DSD.
KR
Matt

Certainly can but to get to this point a lot of work to be done at all points from recording to playback. 

Genuinely Direct DSD from Recording to Playback can be done with software like Miskas HQPlayer and I would like it very much to have the best of both worlds with the Phasure NOS1 and a Phasure DSD DAC, but there is a long way to go:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/multibit-direct-stream-digital-debate-18437/index9.html

KR
Matt

Hi there Matt,

There's hardly a single word from me in my own forum about DSD, because there's not much "need" so to speak from current customers. Anyway, you did find that one topic about it I guess.


Whether that's brilliant ... OK it should be because of all the additional design work to make it the best out there right out of the box. But whether it's the best in absolute sense, meaning compared to PCM ...

By now I have spend maybe a 100 posts about this (indeed the last one in Stereo.net.au) and they all come down to the same : I don't know. The reasoning for that is always a bit different and it reflects the date of writing, but in the end it only gets worse (for good merits as I see them) when time passes. I mean, the more time passes the more better DSD DACs come about, and the more get compared to the NOS1 and the more loose. I can't help that, and it doesn't help good motivation.

If you followed me on CA somewhat, you have seen that Miska and me alwats concur in the best fashion, or better said : that me and him try to work out the unexplored fields with his explicit target DSD and mine ... well, the unknown but maybe the same. Point here is, the other day I finally tried HQPlayer myself and I did not see (measure) at all what was promised so to speak. This was preconfirmed by listeners (everybody is invited to use the playback software of choice) and I wanted to check the "why". I think this all is because what we (I) see from Miska are theoretical plots (read : in the digital domain) while I measure the real output (analogue domain) *and* it needs a "non touching" DAC in the first place wich Miska does not own.
So mind you please, this is far from bashing one which whom I ever and always concur with, but things just don't seem to work out. And so :

So this is another kind of demotivation because it seems that I now need to make all this software myself while indeed it is so that I can't be in every place at the same time. The only thing I could do is design (and make - this is ready but untested yet) the hardware volume control in best fashion, of which I have always said it molests. So this one should not.
At least I now don't need to make that in software, of which I wouldn't know where to begin (I'd say it is impossible when all needs to stay native DSD, but Miska made it (FWIW but no real reason to distrust that)).

For priorities (and motivation) it remains a huge struggle, for example referring to the latest XXHighEnd version, which to me clearly brings more than any hardware change (like DSD would be that). Also it is and remains so that there's just no native DSD around (relatively speaking) while I 100% know that once even the slightest has been in the PCM domain, it will loose forever (from the NOS1). It is mainly this what makes me think all it totally moot, and it is only that almost nobody gets this (which creates a theroretical market).

There is much more, like many people being convinced that when they convert a PCM album to DSD with their Korg Audiogate software, it sounds better. Well, I don't think I told it anywhere (no real reason to) but that software s*cks so much (measurements !) that it is already guaranteed to me that those people like DSD because it just sounds different (and now with way more distortion (6dB)).
What I also never told is that we all depend so heavily on the (marketing of) Blue Coast, with a. the notice how they relate to Korg and b. my notice to you that even their DSD recordings see PCM (don't tell Cookie because I like her very much). Mind you, DSD recordings - not tape recordings transferred to DSD (now wonder the merits of *that*).

And so whatever I do with DSD costs a LOT of time and money, and it is against all odds as I see it. But then I am stupid.

Regards,
Peter

Peter,
thanks for clarification.
I am referring to pure DSD recordings or transfers from analogue tapes to DSD without any conversion for volume control or editing etc. to PCM.
I followed you and Miska on CA and if I understand Miska correctly he has build his own not commercially available pure DSD DAC without chips.
KR
Matt