I forgot to say: All digital music production has been outputting PCM since the beginning. DSD was also transcoded from PCM (called DXD to obfuscate it) in the early days of DSD. Old analog masters can also be converted to PCM digital in high quality PCM far better than CD quality e.g. 192kHz 24 bits superior to DSD-64.
I like dsd SACD's mastered in 5.1 surround. Simply because it adds a new dimension to recordings. It places the listner 'in' the sound stage when done well. The reality however is that unless you're buying from Paul. All DSD files/SACD's are either from PCM or Analogue recordings. Since no-one else is capturing in DSD. On playback, in a blind test of the same track mastered in the same way. I suspect it would be a coin toss as to whether one prefers the DSD or PCM at the same fidelity. Or even if they could pick one from the other.
But even Octave Records is mastering in PCM. I'm not sure what this fuss about DSD is about but you can't digitally master music in DSD. Frankly, DSD has zero chance as alternative to PCM for digital audio in consumer electronics because it doesn't allow even the basics of digital audio processing. DSD has a theoretical benefit of representing the binary output of a sigma-delta ADC loyally but that "benefit" is gone as soon as you hit the mastering process and besides many DAC chips aren't truly 1 bit nowadays anyway and more optimized towards PCM as that is where >99% of the market is e.g. all streaming content.
Fact is that any modern digital music production results in a PCM output and if you want to maintain that master output, PCM is the correct format. Transcoding PCM to DSD to subsequently distribute it will just make it a lossy copy. That’s just a fact. I have no idea why people get excited about DSD nowadays but on SACD it made sense ages ago as superior to red book 44.1kHz 16 bits PCM. Nowadays we can do PCM in superior quality to DSD-64.
No doubt Paul is right about really good DSD being the best. OTOH, I find a well recorded track played at redbook 44.1 PCM on a really good NOS R2R DAC is sublime. The good news is the music is damn near free as everyone ditches their CD collection. Ripped to a hard drive no one will ever know if it was free or $39 USD for a well recorded DSD256 download.
I like the feel of DSD. My big system is setup to playback anything/everything in DSD 256, be it from my own storage or streaming. It just removes enough computer and adds enough analog to feel better to my physical self.
Personally, I just don’t think the difference between DSD and PCM is that significant. I heard both and they both sound really good. What I fail to understand is how does one define “not as good” when talking about PCM as compared to DSD? That always seems to be left out of the discussion. I can’t detect any differences between the two formats. It’s not to say that there are no differences but as far as I’m concerned, even if you could hear a difference, it has nothing to do with one format being more true to the source than another. We really don’t have a “reference” to compare these two formats. For all I know, a PCM file might actually sound more like the original source than the DSD file. Maybe the DSD file would in some cases. How would anyone know for sure? I’m more than fine with PCM since virtually all lossless music uses this. I’m not going to give up all my music just to listen to a handful of albums in DSD.
@@flargosa even with that, the question still remains - what are those audible differences? Is it something like a digital artifact or layering that one format minimizes or eliminates? I just think it would boil down to perceived differences regardless of the equipment. Using different gear will yield more audible differences than trying to discern these ”imaginary” differences between PCM and DSD. I’ll bet anything that if Paul tried to boil down what these actual differences are, it would come across as a perception or an ideal of what seems different. In other words, it just comes down to preference. And that’s ok - nothing wrong with that. And kudos to Paul for his care and commitment to this hobby. But unless someone can prove tangible sound differences between these two formats, which admittedly most people won’t hear anyway, PCM is still way more than adequate, even with mega-buck gear.
I record music in PCM and DSD. These are hardware instruments (stage pianos, analog synths, hardware effects units etc.) and not virtual instruments being exported to a file. I can say the DSD recording always sounds more like what I hear straight from the instruments' own headphone or line out jacks. So in my experience, DSD is preferred. That said, I can see how some music genres or hifi systems would benefit from some of the gloss/sizzle that PCM provides. The main difference I can hear in my own productions lies in how spatial cues like reverb, echo, and delay are presented. They're more subtle and tend to have more depth in DSD. Dynamics are also a little more soft in DSD, but that's how stuff sounds in real life. PCM can have a less natural, although more enhanced, precision to the sound.
@@housepianist DSD sample rate is 2.8 mhz the best pcm can do is 192khz. DSD takes 14.8X more samples per second than pcm. More samples mean the recording tracks the original sound wave better.
just try it. if you cant hear a diff forget it . if you can, go for it. its that simple. but dsd is sooooo a big file. not practical. flac or ape pcm is just fine for me.
I do think the stance Rockna has, sums it up nicely. In a short article on their website they say PCM is the best format (that is debatable), but DSD has the advantage to require a much simpler topology to reproduce compared to PCM, and MUCH simpler sounds generally better when there are so many things that can wrong. My personal experience is that the more you go up in performance (and price) the less difference there is. You take a 150$ DAC and you will instantly tell what file is PCM or DSD because PCM sounds vailed and low quality. At $1500 the difference will be lost because the difference in mastering bigger then the difference in format, so you will not notice it unless you A/B the same recording in both formats. I am curious how it is at 15.000 $ 😄. If wont forget, I'lll come back to report on that one.
Definitely not, if you're comparing standard res PCM with DSD. Even DSD64 can have bass quality that I've never heard in any PCM recordings, nevermind higher rate DSD.
@@edfort5704 Long ago DSD-64 was introduced as a more effective use of the data capacity of a CD to gain some audio fidelity over red book 44.1kHz 16 bits. DSD-64 gives you more precision in the timing domain and loses on the level domain. For bass, there is no winner between these two and what you hear is not about the data format. Besides, all music mastered digitally has PCM as output format thus if you think the bass sounds better on DSD, what you hear is a lossy version of a PCM track. No, DSD-64 is about upper treble qualities. On the PCM side, 192kHz 24 bits is available as lossless error-free streaming superior to DSD-64. Can your ears discern better than 192kHz 24 bits PCM audio? I absolutely don't think so.
@@ThinkingBetter Everyone's ears can discern way beyond 192kHz 24bits PCM audio, because it's not about hearing ultrasonic frequencies, but about hearing multiple frequencies in the audible domain.
Well, put on your boots ladies and gentlemen while Paul McGowen goes off on another DSD fallacy! Hey, Paul isn't it true that the DSD material you release is just a DSD conversion from PCM? If so then your DSD releases can't possibly be better than PCM now, can they? Paul likes to bash the Audio Research Science channel because the channel often proves scientifically that Paul's not telling the truth about his equipment or DSD.
My sense, having followed a lot of the online debate and listening to fine DSD and PCM recordings, is that it's variable, dependent upon the rest of the recording and playback contexts; and that it comes down on a given recording (or in general) to personal preference. Typically I like either format, don't hear much difference overall; and though I may find PCM slightly more 'accurate' overall, that may come down to suboptimal implementation of DSD in many cases.
I have made hundreds of tests comparing the two formats. My conclusion is the recording is not important if it is on PCM or DSD. What matters most is the native format used by the DAC conversion stage. If the DAC is PCM native then PCM is the better format to feed that DAC but many Delta/Sigma DACs are actually DSD native and they convert the PCM signal to DSD with the limited computational resources that the DAC has. If you apply conversion to DSD previously on the chain, for example on the software you are using to play the music, you can have access to much better conversion algorithms and CPU power to apply them. Thus, the produced sound from the DAC is much more smooth (more analog sounding if you like to call it that way) than the original PCM when reproduced on that DAC. Some brands have discovered that too. For Example, Marantz on their high end CD Players have a DSD conversion stage before feeding their ESS based internal DAC.
As all new music is produced in PCM, as the demographics of audiophiles increasingly transition to modern lossless CD quality (or better) streaming using PCM and as increasingly audiophile gear will include DSP (e.g. my KF LS60), there is not much of a future for DSD. Rather than trying to keep DSD alive and maintain status-quo of the audiophile industry, Paul should put their passionate engineering behind making a next-gen "KEF LS60 killer" speaker lineup: Aspen Active Series...
@@baronofgreymatter14 With my Roon Server, I could try it myself and for some songs I could say yes, DSD sounds better and in other songs it sounded the same. So you probably have to try out for yourself.
How do I know which is which? Is there a setting in my 20yo av receiver that I would toggle? I have a combo dvd player that can play sacds and I have one sacd disc. Can I test it that way?
Well that was as clear as mud. Maybe this is one reason so many are turning to vinyl. They can see and feel the differences of analog unlike the voodoo magic of digital.
Then you can wrestle with the quality of the cartridge, tone arm, motor, plinth, several critical setup parameters, step up transformer, phono preamp, cables, power supplies for all of these... Yup, so simple its like falling off a log. :)
@@user-od9iz9cv1wmore of a ritual than anything else. I personally love both, both have their ups and their quirks, but if i had to pick, honestly CD disk... you dont have to be so picky and finesse with it, just plug and play. Also depends on the type of CD. Whether ADD or ADD(ADD i would pick).
Just out of curiosity We are not able to "hear" frequencies above 20k but we do hear the harmonics created wich appears in the hearable spectrum correct? Wel oke paul uses Neumann mics for his DSD 256 recordings Ever looked at the specs of these mikes? At around 16k -18 k it stops "hearing" anything so what are we recording then in DSD 256 at 100k? Big bear 103.6 fm?
The term , it sounds better between pcm vs dsd , to me DSD has a more Analog sound somewhat closer to vinyl if not better , Natural. Same recording in PCM has that digital like sound , times more dynamic and at time quicker livelier. But it all comes to preference. I like DSD. It just sounds true and natural without coloration
Which DSD tracks do you hear such difference? Give me the titles. Perhaps you didn't realize those DSD tracks actually are lossy transcoded versions of a PCM master hahaha
@@ThinkingBetter buy some of octave records sacd , and you’ll find out 😀. But just for giggle , compare kind o blue three track sacd only to a pcm version . 30th Anniversary darkside of the moon sacd and switch to same cd but listen to pcm
@@christianreyes409 I don’t doubt Octave Records being very ambitious in their recordings and have also some of these tracks, but when the track is done with their current gear, the master output is PCM. Concerning Dark Side of the Moon, yes the CD version of the 30th anniversary edition sounds like crap being compressed and too loud. It has nothing to do with DSD vs PCM. I bought the original vinyl version in 1978 and CD version in the 1980s and also bought other albums of Pink Floyd. Thus I’m very familiar with Pink Floyd incl. recent work by Roger Waters. Btw, the worst sounding Pink Floyd music I ever heard was a Pink Floyd The Wall live concert in Anaheim California. It was visually amazing but like always, worst audio is at a live concert. Very worst I heard recently was the half-time concert at the 2022 Super Bowl. Portable AM radios can do better. It’s somewhat funny how some audiophiles think their system should sound like what you hear at live concerts LOL. Which decent music sounds better live hahaha?
Mark Levinson was able to personally record in DSD in his small Red Rose retail store on the east side of Manhattan that blew me away. Never heard anything that has yet to compare with this small series of about seven or eight releases from Red Rose. I hate to say it but they sounded more musical than Octave recordings. Mark’s recordings sounded incredibly natural In every way without added reverb or other DSP affects. This was many years ago. If Mark could do it then the whole industry can. The bigger problem is spending much more money on a DSD CD player or transport and having to sell my excellent sounding PCM CD Player, a Wadia, which I know that Paul and Nelson both incorporated into their own systems. Perhaps one day I’ll give in. After all, it took me 15 years to purchase my first CD player because it took that long to get PCM to sound like audiophile quality recordings.
If "sounds better" is the diagnosis on pcm vs. DSD of 70+ year old persons, then something is flawed. I doubt it's the format. Rather different mastering, setup or the tenderness of placebo. DSD works around problems via noise shaping, already on a theoretical level a reason to avoid it. We have PCM, which does the job perfectly.
What if you only have CD quality files is it PCM flac files sufficient. I guess what I'm saying is in order to get the full benefit of DSD don't you have to have high-res recordings?
DSD, PCM, DAC, sampling, bits, streams... All these acronyms and terms make my brain hurt. I'll stick to my diamond dragging through a piece of plastic and let you smarter people handle this digital stuff.
That's good, too, but in addition to a turntable and lps, a reasonable disc player can make digital simple. Even though I tend to prefer analog playback, certain recordings can only be found in digital, or may sound a bit better in them in many cases (I'm thinking specifically of large orchestral pieces- otherwise I typically prefer analog).
All that matters is good recording and good music.. The rest is just an academic exercise... I can not tell the difference between DSD and PCM.... plus DSD playback through SACD's is littered with copyright issues. Yes, I2S is an option but that's another $$$ needed and there are no guarantees it will work due to lack of standardization of I2S pinout
DSD sample rate is 2.8 mhz while the best pcm is 192 khz. Meaning DSD is taking 14.7 times more samples per second than PCM. This maybe why dsd is superior because it takes a lot more samples/sec. Provided the recording equipment is good and the playback equipment is capable, there should be an audible difference.
They key phrase is 'Provided the recording equipment is good and the playback equipment is capable, but they absolutely do not need to be expensive'. Anyone who claims you need high-end hardware to hear and appreciate the magic sound of DSD and its net superiority to well-established PCM recordings, has no real clue how little you need in terms of hardware for this.
Then you look at PCM and realise that high quality PCM has 24 or 32 bit resolution which means 2^24 = 16.777.216 or 2^32 = 4.294.967.296 bit resolution. Yes, that's right, over 4 billion bits of resolution instead of a single bit for any DSD format. There is not more data in DSD but the data can be handled differently by the DAC and if done right by the DAC might sound better. Single DSD (i.e. DSD64) has about the data of 88.1kHz/24bit PCM, from there you go upwards.
He conveniently FORGETS SBM? Sony claims that the Super Bit Mapping process converts a 20-bit signal from master recording into a 16-bit signal nearly without sound quality loss, using noise shaping to improve signal-to-noise ratio over the frequency bands most acutely perceived by human hearing. This guy has already blocked my comments.
While those methods sound interesting, it certainly doesn't fit the technically purist philosophy of maintaining maximum quality all the way to the speakers... Probably a good method if one assumes 16 bit delivery is the eventual destination like it was in broadcast for a time
Dire Straits 3 debut albums are all SBM and were manufactured in the early 80's. I dare you to listen to them and not be utterly convinced that Jesus just entered the room. @@ZachSwena
ALL Music Studios since the 90s, have been Compressing CD audio to SH*T... and you can 100% hear how bad it makes them sound. The only exception, is the Audio recorded for BluRay / DVD movies. For whatever reason, they allow US plebs to have high fidelity in Movies... but we are NOT allowed to have it in our MUSIC CDs ! The ECO Radicals saw too this. They are a CANCER on this PLANET. As compressing great music, is a Crime against Humanity itself.
@@theaustralianconundrum "He conveniently FORGETS SBM?" He did not forget. It was not part of Roger, from West Midlands UK question. Roger asked about PCM and DSD, and how they compare. As it pertains to Sony's sound quality, they have never made a high-end box. Is SBM an exception to their otherwise very good, but nothing exceptional, product line?
I love PCM but I love DSD also. Both can be MAGNIFICENT so to argue which could bee better is a waste of time for me.
Just different forms of the same outcome...beautiful music.
Yes, it’s a silly topic. Modern digital music production outputs a PCM master so I don’t even see DSD being a topic of much relevance anymore.
I forgot to say: All digital music production has been outputting PCM since the beginning. DSD was also transcoded from PCM (called DXD to obfuscate it) in the early days of DSD. Old analog masters can also be converted to PCM digital in high quality PCM far better than CD quality e.g. 192kHz 24 bits superior to DSD-64.
To me, this kind of question is like asking if sunset is better than sunrise.
I like dsd SACD's mastered in 5.1 surround. Simply because it adds a new dimension to recordings. It places the listner 'in' the sound stage when done well.
The reality however is that unless you're buying from Paul. All DSD files/SACD's are either from PCM or Analogue recordings. Since no-one else is capturing in DSD.
On playback, in a blind test of the same track mastered in the same way. I suspect it would be a coin toss as to whether one prefers the DSD or PCM at the same fidelity. Or even if they could pick one from the other.
But even Octave Records is mastering in PCM. I'm not sure what this fuss about DSD is about but you can't digitally master music in DSD. Frankly, DSD has zero chance as alternative to PCM for digital audio in consumer electronics because it doesn't allow even the basics of digital audio processing. DSD has a theoretical benefit of representing the binary output of a sigma-delta ADC loyally but that "benefit" is gone as soon as you hit the mastering process and besides many DAC chips aren't truly 1 bit nowadays anyway and more optimized towards PCM as that is where >99% of the market is e.g. all streaming content.
"a joyless bunch" LOL! A few of the "joyless bunch" always make their way to this comment section...
Fact is that any modern digital music production results in a PCM output and if you want to maintain that master output, PCM is the correct format. Transcoding PCM to DSD to subsequently distribute it will just make it a lossy copy. That’s just a fact. I have no idea why people get excited about DSD nowadays but on SACD it made sense ages ago as superior to red book 44.1kHz 16 bits PCM. Nowadays we can do PCM in superior quality to DSD-64.
No doubt Paul is right about really good DSD being the best.
OTOH, I find a well recorded track played at redbook 44.1 PCM on a really good NOS R2R DAC is sublime. The good news is the music is damn near free as everyone ditches their CD collection. Ripped to a hard drive no one will ever know if it was free or $39 USD for a well recorded DSD256 download.
I like the feel of DSD. My big system is setup to playback anything/everything in DSD 256, be it from my own storage or streaming. It just removes enough computer and adds enough analog to feel better to my physical self.
I love Paul's chuckles in 4k. Now that the same Chinese made DAC chips produce output for PCM and DSD is this really a conversation?
Personally, I just don’t think the difference between DSD and PCM is that significant. I heard both and they both sound really good. What I fail to understand is how does one define “not as good” when talking about PCM as compared to DSD? That always seems to be left out of the discussion.
I can’t detect any differences between the two formats. It’s not to say that there are no differences but as far as I’m concerned, even if you could hear a difference, it has nothing to do with one format being more true to the source than another. We really don’t have a “reference” to compare these two formats. For all I know, a PCM file might actually sound more like the original source than the DSD file. Maybe the DSD file would in some cases. How would anyone know for sure?
I’m more than fine with PCM since virtually all lossless music uses this. I’m not going to give up all my music just to listen to a handful of albums in DSD.
The difference may be audible with higher resolution gear, such as PS Audio’s $9k dac and $20k speakers.
@flargosa the placebo effect kicks in when spending lots of money on equipment
@@flargosa even with that, the question still remains - what are those audible differences? Is it something like a digital artifact or layering that one format minimizes or eliminates? I just think it would boil down to perceived differences regardless of the equipment. Using different gear will yield more audible differences than trying to discern these ”imaginary” differences between PCM and DSD.
I’ll bet anything that if Paul tried to boil down what these actual differences are, it would come across as a perception or an ideal of what seems different. In other words, it just comes down to preference. And that’s ok - nothing wrong with that. And kudos to Paul for his care and commitment to this hobby. But unless someone can prove tangible sound differences between these two formats, which admittedly most people won’t hear anyway, PCM is still way more than adequate, even with mega-buck gear.
I record music in PCM and DSD. These are hardware instruments (stage pianos, analog synths, hardware effects units etc.) and not virtual instruments being exported to a file. I can say the DSD recording always sounds more like what I hear straight from the instruments' own headphone or line out jacks. So in my experience, DSD is preferred. That said, I can see how some music genres or hifi systems would benefit from some of the gloss/sizzle that PCM provides.
The main difference I can hear in my own productions lies in how spatial cues like reverb, echo, and delay are presented. They're more subtle and tend to have more depth in DSD. Dynamics are also a little more soft in DSD, but that's how stuff sounds in real life. PCM can have a less natural, although more enhanced, precision to the sound.
@@housepianist DSD sample rate is 2.8 mhz the best pcm can do is 192khz. DSD takes 14.8X more samples per second than pcm. More samples mean the recording tracks the original sound wave better.
just try it. if you cant hear a diff forget it . if you can, go for it. its that simple.
but dsd is sooooo a big file. not practical. flac or ape pcm is just fine for me.
I do think the stance Rockna has, sums it up nicely. In a short article on their website they say PCM is the best format (that is debatable), but DSD has the advantage to require a much simpler topology to reproduce compared to PCM, and MUCH simpler sounds generally better when there are so many things that can wrong.
My personal experience is that the more you go up in performance (and price) the less difference there is. You take a 150$ DAC and you will instantly tell what file is PCM or DSD because PCM sounds vailed and low quality. At $1500 the difference will be lost because the difference in mastering bigger then the difference in format, so you will not notice it unless you A/B the same recording in both formats. I am curious how it is at 15.000 $ 😄. If wont forget, I'lll come back to report on that one.
PCM vs. DSD has to be the most rehashed and repeated topic here! PCM *done right* is every bit as good, if not better, than DSD.
The irony is that the very master output of any digital music production is indeed PCM. Why would I want a lossy transcoded copy in DSD?
Definitely not, if you're comparing standard res PCM with DSD.
Even DSD64 can have bass quality that I've never heard in any PCM recordings, nevermind higher rate DSD.
@@edfort5704 Long ago DSD-64 was introduced as a more effective use of the data capacity of a CD to gain some audio fidelity over red book 44.1kHz 16 bits. DSD-64 gives you more precision in the timing domain and loses on the level domain. For bass, there is no winner between these two and what you hear is not about the data format. Besides, all music mastered digitally has PCM as output format thus if you think the bass sounds better on DSD, what you hear is a lossy version of a PCM track. No, DSD-64 is about upper treble qualities. On the PCM side, 192kHz 24 bits is available as lossless error-free streaming superior to DSD-64. Can your ears discern better than 192kHz 24 bits PCM audio? I absolutely don't think so.
@@ThinkingBetter Everyone's ears can discern way beyond 192kHz 24bits PCM audio, because it's not about hearing ultrasonic frequencies, but about hearing multiple frequencies in the audible domain.
Have both technologies at home and find PCM to sound quite much better and natural.
0:35 ROFL... well said
I think the noise he is referring to is the noise floor of dsd vs pcm. Not the ultrasonic noise.
Well, put on your boots ladies and gentlemen while Paul McGowen goes off on another DSD fallacy!
Hey, Paul isn't it true that the DSD material you release is just a DSD conversion from PCM?
If so then your DSD releases can't possibly be better than PCM now, can they?
Paul likes to bash the Audio Research Science channel because the channel often proves scientifically that Paul's not telling the truth about his equipment or DSD.
My sense, having followed a lot of the online debate and listening to fine DSD and PCM recordings, is that it's variable, dependent upon the rest of the recording and playback contexts; and that it comes down on a given recording (or in general) to personal preference. Typically I like either format, don't hear much difference overall; and though I may find PCM slightly more 'accurate' overall, that may come down to suboptimal implementation of DSD in many cases.
I have made hundreds of tests comparing the two formats. My conclusion is the recording is not important if it is on PCM or DSD. What matters most is the native format used by the DAC conversion stage. If the DAC is PCM native then PCM is the better format to feed that DAC but many Delta/Sigma DACs are actually DSD native and they convert the PCM signal to DSD with the limited computational resources that the DAC has. If you apply conversion to DSD previously on the chain, for example on the software you are using to play the music, you can have access to much better conversion algorithms and CPU power to apply them. Thus, the produced sound from the DAC is much more smooth (more analog sounding if you like to call it that way) than the original PCM when reproduced on that DAC. Some brands have discovered that too. For Example, Marantz on their high end CD Players have a DSD conversion stage before feeding their ESS based internal DAC.
Again? (And again, and again...)
Exactly what I was thinking
As all new music is produced in PCM, as the demographics of audiophiles increasingly transition to modern lossless CD quality (or better) streaming using PCM and as increasingly audiophile gear will include DSP (e.g. my KF LS60), there is not much of a future for DSD. Rather than trying to keep DSD alive and maintain status-quo of the audiophile industry, Paul should put their passionate engineering behind making a next-gen "KEF LS60 killer" speaker lineup: Aspen Active Series...
There is very little DSD content out there to worry about.
Accoring to Paul, even PCM converted to DSD before DAC sounds better.
@@goodsound4756 is it worth the hassle though?
@@baronofgreymatter14 With my Roon Server, I could try it myself and for some songs I could say yes, DSD sounds better and in other songs it sounded the same. So you probably have to try out for yourself.
@@goodsound4756 I have a roon server. I'm just not familiar with how to upscale pcm to dsd
All the Vinyl records in the world await being digitized into DSD.
How do I know which is which? Is there a setting in my 20yo av receiver that I would toggle? I have a combo dvd player that can play sacds and I have one sacd disc. Can I test it that way?
Well that was as clear as mud. Maybe this is one reason so many are turning to vinyl. They can see and feel the differences of analog unlike the voodoo magic of digital.
Then you can wrestle with the quality of the cartridge, tone arm, motor, plinth, several critical setup parameters, step up transformer, phono preamp, cables, power supplies for all of these... Yup, so simple its like falling off a log. :)
@@user-od9iz9cv1wmore of a ritual than anything else. I personally love both, both have their ups and their quirks, but if i had to pick, honestly CD disk... you dont have to be so picky and finesse with it, just plug and play. Also depends on the type of CD. Whether ADD or ADD(ADD i would pick).
Just out of curiosity
We are not able to "hear" frequencies above 20k but we do hear the harmonics created wich appears in the hearable spectrum correct?
Wel oke paul uses Neumann mics for his DSD 256 recordings
Ever looked at the specs of these mikes?
At around 16k -18 k it stops "hearing" anything so what are we recording then in DSD 256 at 100k?
Big bear 103.6 fm?
The term , it sounds better between pcm vs dsd , to me DSD has a more Analog sound somewhat closer to vinyl if not better , Natural. Same recording in PCM has that digital like sound , times more dynamic and at time quicker livelier. But it all comes to preference. I like DSD. It just sounds true and natural without coloration
Which DSD tracks do you hear such difference? Give me the titles. Perhaps you didn't realize those DSD tracks actually are lossy transcoded versions of a PCM master hahaha
@@ThinkingBetter buy some of octave records sacd , and you’ll find out 😀. But just for giggle , compare kind o blue three track sacd only to a pcm version . 30th Anniversary darkside of the moon sacd and switch to same cd but listen to pcm
@@christianreyes409 I don’t doubt Octave Records being very ambitious in their recordings and have also some of these tracks, but when the track is done with their current gear, the master output is PCM. Concerning Dark Side of the Moon, yes the CD version of the 30th anniversary edition sounds like crap being compressed and too loud. It has nothing to do with DSD vs PCM. I bought the original vinyl version in 1978 and CD version in the 1980s and also bought other albums of Pink Floyd. Thus I’m very familiar with Pink Floyd incl. recent work by Roger Waters. Btw, the worst sounding Pink Floyd music I ever heard was a Pink Floyd The Wall live concert in Anaheim California. It was visually amazing but like always, worst audio is at a live concert. Very worst I heard recently was the half-time concert at the 2022 Super Bowl. Portable AM radios can do better. It’s somewhat funny how some audiophiles think their system should sound like what you hear at live concerts LOL. Which decent music sounds better live hahaha?
Mark Levinson was able to personally record in DSD in his small Red Rose retail store on the east side of Manhattan that blew me away. Never heard anything that has yet to compare with this small series of about seven or eight releases from Red Rose. I hate to say it but they sounded more musical than Octave recordings. Mark’s recordings sounded incredibly natural In every way without added reverb or other DSP affects. This was many years ago. If Mark could do it then the whole industry can. The bigger problem is spending much more money on a DSD CD player or transport and having to sell my excellent sounding
PCM CD Player, a Wadia, which I know that Paul and Nelson both incorporated into their own systems. Perhaps one day I’ll give in. After all, it took me 15 years to purchase my first CD player because it took that long to get PCM to sound like audiophile quality recordings.
If "sounds better" is the diagnosis on pcm vs. DSD of 70+ year old persons, then something is flawed. I doubt it's the format. Rather different mastering, setup or the tenderness of placebo.
DSD works around problems via noise shaping, already on a theoretical level a reason to avoid it. We have PCM, which does the job perfectly.
What if you only have CD quality files is it PCM flac files sufficient.
I guess what I'm saying is in order to get the full benefit of DSD don't you have to have high-res recordings?
Exactly that
Of course you need high-res recordings. But even Vinyl rips to DSD sound unlike anything PCM, so give them a try - .DSF and .dff files usually
DSD, PCM, DAC, sampling, bits, streams... All these acronyms and terms make my brain hurt. I'll stick to my diamond dragging through a piece of plastic and let you smarter people handle this digital stuff.
That's good, too, but in addition to a turntable and lps, a reasonable disc player can make digital simple. Even though I tend to prefer analog playback, certain recordings can only be found in digital, or may sound a bit better in them in many cases (I'm thinking specifically of large orchestral pieces- otherwise I typically prefer analog).
Deja view 😂
All that matters is good recording and good music.. The rest is just an academic exercise... I can not tell the difference between DSD and PCM.... plus DSD playback through SACD's is littered with copyright issues. Yes, I2S is an option but that's another $$$ needed and there are no guarantees it will work due to lack of standardization of I2S pinout
DSD sample rate is 2.8 mhz while the best pcm is 192 khz. Meaning DSD is taking 14.7 times more samples per second than PCM. This maybe why dsd is superior because it takes a lot more samples/sec. Provided the recording equipment is good and the playback equipment is capable, there should be an audible difference.
They key phrase is 'Provided the recording equipment is good and the playback equipment is capable, but they absolutely do not need to be expensive'.
Anyone who claims you need high-end hardware to hear and appreciate the magic sound of DSD and its net superiority to well-established PCM recordings, has no real clue how little you need in terms of hardware for this.
Then you look at PCM and realise that high quality PCM has 24 or 32 bit resolution which means 2^24 = 16.777.216 or 2^32 = 4.294.967.296 bit resolution. Yes, that's right, over 4 billion bits of resolution instead of a single bit for any DSD format. There is not more data in DSD but the data can be handled differently by the DAC and if done right by the DAC might sound better. Single DSD (i.e. DSD64) has about the data of 88.1kHz/24bit PCM, from there you go upwards.
He conveniently FORGETS SBM? Sony claims that the Super Bit Mapping process converts a 20-bit signal from master recording into a 16-bit signal nearly without sound quality loss, using noise shaping to improve signal-to-noise ratio over the frequency bands most acutely perceived by human hearing. This guy has already blocked my comments.
While those methods sound interesting, it certainly doesn't fit the technically purist philosophy of maintaining maximum quality all the way to the speakers... Probably a good method if one assumes 16 bit delivery is the eventual destination like it was in broadcast for a time
Dire Straits 3 debut albums are all SBM and were manufactured in the early 80's. I dare you to listen to them and not be utterly convinced that Jesus just entered the room. @@ZachSwena
ALL Music Studios since the 90s, have been Compressing CD audio to SH*T... and you can 100% hear how bad it makes them sound. The only exception, is the Audio recorded for BluRay / DVD movies. For whatever reason, they allow US plebs to have high fidelity in Movies... but we are NOT allowed to have it in our MUSIC CDs ! The ECO Radicals saw too this. They are a CANCER on this PLANET. As compressing great music, is a Crime against Humanity itself.
@@theaustralianconundrum "He conveniently FORGETS SBM?"
He did not forget. It was not part of Roger, from West Midlands UK question.
Roger asked about PCM and DSD, and how they compare.
As it pertains to Sony's sound quality, they have never made a high-end box. Is SBM an exception to their otherwise very good, but nothing exceptional, product line?
He also conveniently forgot to talk about the jabberwocky. Seriously, wtf are you talking about?
It's a dead audio format that has never been relevant. End of the Story.