About DSD

[AlainGr]

Hi Peter,

I read extraordinary things on CA about the eventuality (I mean "upcoming") of either a modified NOS1 dac that will play DSD or a new dac...

Since this is not really a secret (you talk profusely about it on CA), can you also unveil (develop) it here ?

 

Alain

[PeterSt]

Alain, for those who want to sell their boat or Ferrari, maybe.

But luckily (means : in all honesty) I was just 30 minutes ahead of you with this :

So I survided day 5.
And officially this is enough.
I would even say that some breaking in has been in order, so it even got better.

At this moment I am as far as not being able to "see" anything else but "live instruments" playing in front of me, no matter how hard I try to find faults. All what remains (for me) is the interpretation of how the recording itself may interfere with that idea. So example :

Maybe it is 4 years ago only that I started to recognize something like a real hi-hat coming from the speakers. So of course it was there before, but it started to be loud enough to recognize it as a hi-hat being played. Of course this improved and improved over time.
Now ? well, when say a piano plays at reality levels (90 dBSPL) the hi-hat is as loud as a live one at the same distance. This in itself is creepy. But now careful and this is what I mean :

At the same time (same track I mean) a normal cymbal is *not* at its normal level (ehm, luckily ?). But then I have been at concerts where the drum kit was not amplified, except for the hi-hat. And, after the drummer had slammed around for 30 minutes, he managed to slam the hi-hat's microphone out of the way and it was me myself putting it back into position because nothing of it coud be heard anymore. This, while it's a crucial part of the drum kit.

So what I'm saying is that these kind of aspects will be known at recording-making, and I guess the hi-hat will be amplified more than the other parts. Same for instruments amongst eachother - undoubtedly.
Anyway, at this moment this seems the only aspect left for perceiving the real thing. Still scary enough.

Peter

So what I need to say is : I am operating in all over duality. Or the messages from it if you want.

So imagine, the isolation ("a" version of the NOS1) is part of this design, but could be taken out and applied as an upgrade. Result ? all way better again.
Then I am continuing the DSD design itself - just because only God knows if it will be for the better - and only 5 days ago I could have written what I quoted above. Not before that.

So what am I saying ? well, that at this moment I have no clue what could ever be improved over your (due) NOS1a. Small caveat : that cable must work out and possibly you need the same speakers as I have.
But don't ask me what can happen if you do not have that speaker.

So we could say this is "just happening" because I started it anyway (ehm, I think 3 years ago by now) but with the notice that half of this world thinks that DSD is for the better only - well, they can have it. And of course, maybe it *is* better, but at this day (or since 5 days if you like) I wouldn't know how.

Still, if I had to say something useful to our own community (the NOS1(a) community) then I would say this :

16x Arc Prediction will be able to be 256x and this is outside of DSD.

Nice ?
If you have a boat or a Ferrari, yes, because PCM *will* be for the technical better. Audible ? we must see that. But first sell those goodies.

haha

Peter

[pedal]

...but with the notice that half of this world thinks that DSD is for the better only - well, they can have it. And of course, maybe it *is* better, but at this day (or since 5 days if you like) I wouldn't know how.

IMHO,

DSD is a waste of time, simply because PCM already *is* transparent at 24bit and >192Hz sampling frequency.

-In the studio, the recording engineers are not able to differ between the live feed coming from the musicians on the other side of the window, and the same signal running through ADA conversion at 24/192 or higher.

The whole DSD thing was created by Sony because of:
-Trying to get a new cash cow after the CD-Red book legal rights expires.
-Trying to have the music copy protected (which they forgot to apply on CD/Red Book).

---------

DSD certainly IS a good medium, and probably on pair with PCM. The point is however that as long as one format (PCM) already is transparent, we don't need the other.
-You cannot get more transparent than transparent. For this reason I feel very sorry for the high-end community unnecessarily wasting so much resources on a second format which only doubles up.

Besides, PCM technology (hardware/software) has a market share of "1000:1" compared with DSD.

[Scroobius]

DSD certainly IS a good medium, and probably on pair with PCM

The problem is that the recording studio cannot do anything with a DSD file. In other words if you record live to a DSD file then you cannot do any mixing. So what the recording studios do is convert from DSD to PCM then they do mixing and whatever else they need to do and then convert back to DSD. So when "half the world" say they love the sound of DSD they are not actually listening to DSD they are listening to PCM/DSD. So it is doubtful that many people if any have actually listened to a pure unadulterated DSD file as such (it would have to be recorded direct to DSD with no mixing!!).

But half the world seems to think that DSD is the best thing ever - which begs the question why would it sound better?  One reason might be that when they listen to a DSD file they are not listening via the  oversampling filter that most CD players still use to play PCM files. So if it sounds better it is actually nothing to with the DSD file at all.

Of course we NOS owners are some of the few that can listen to PCM properly - not many out there are so privileged or lucky.

Cheers

Paul