I think this whole issue is really blurred today. Most commercial recording are made with delta sigma ADC's (have been for over 10 years now) and the current generation of ADC's have better measured conventional performance that anything before.

What makes this interesting is that the delta sigma processor is the same one that generates the DSD stream out a different set of pins on the chip. I can argue (with lots of had waving) that DSD and PCM are just different transports of the same captured data between the same ADC and DAC (also delta sigma).

In the obscure niche that is the audiophile world there may be better alternatives but once commercial content is mixed in then PCM vs. DSD may not be too meaningful. DXD for example is PCM at 384 KHz sampling. The Pyrimix DSD editor converts the DSD to DXD (384 PCM) and edits it using PCM algorithms and then converts back to DSD (just like the ADC/DAC).  In the end what is it? What happens if a DSD low pass filter (50 KHz) is added to a PCM 192KHz stream? Would it sound like DSD?

Execution of the original recording and the boxes at each end is far more important that whether is DSD or PCM.

I'm looking forward to meeting Peter and being on a panel with him. This should be interesting.

Demian
Auraliti (and others. . .)