SACD and DSD protection

SACDs have a protected layer of DSD audio. Paul shares some history and observations.

[@greganderson1681]

I heart SACD. But I got into it more for the surround sound benefits. Now I appreciate the sound quality along with the surround!

[@rosswarren436]

I remember when SACD came out, it wasn't marketed well, and most people were clueless as to exactly what it was. Most thought it was PCM but with just 20-bit resolution. And then all those CD players we had just bought for $700 couldn't play them. For most consumers that was a deal breaker. They expected their CD player to last 10 years or more and weren't going to replace it.

[@ThinkingBetter]

SACD is a down-converted format from 352.8kHz PCM (DXD). Thus, SACD is based on a PCM master stream with transcoding to DSD. The cool thing about DSD is that it preserves well the quality of that 352.8kHz PCM (CD quality oversampled 8 times) audio stream in the time domain. Instead of a couple of samples at 20kHz, you get 16 samples thus you can reproduce treble much more precisely beyond the Nyquist Theorem and with DSD sample rate you have further 8 times higher (8x8=64 times CD quality) binary value (up/down) sample rate, so DSD can easily capture the DXD time resolution. But as the DSD sampling is binary, you also add a lot of ultrasonic noise into that DSD signal, which isn't great.

[@dannytse8767]

SACD also came out when downloading was the rage. How can any format compete with the lure of "free" music ?

[@laurelhardy4064]

Don't worry Paul I have all the evidence here, it's all on tape, I'll swap it for a pair of FR-30's, lol, thanks for the video.

[@emiel333]

Great ❤ video, Paul. I used to own a Super Audio CD player from Philips. The quality of a SACD is phenomenal. Although SACD never reached its potential when it comes to new audio standards, Japan still provides many high end audiophile formats like SACD and even a newer format. People from Japan love high end audio. DSD files are the standard for them and there are many stores also online like Ototoy who sell these music files. I’ve bought a couple to listen for myself and oh my oh my, the quality is really out of this world!

[@Echo-jg8is]

Second hand CDs are around 10 cent or 10 pence each...second hand SACD albums are around $50 to $300...

[@Error2username]

You easly get hd/sacd cheaper than that. Try going into vinyl, thats spencive bigtime

[@Echo-jg8is]

@@Error2username There are only a couple of good common albums available on SACD and they command huge money... The few you can get for $10 to $20 are utterly crap like sounds of the forest or some unheard of classic piece...

[@dannytse8767]

@@Echo-jg8is But that's subjective.

[@Echo-jg8is]

@@dannytse8767 what is subjective?

[@JohnTwo1]

Sacd could have become more prominant if they simply would have decided to release every as hybrid. That way people with cds could have played it with their existing players and sacd functionality would slowly replace that as new players would be bought, including dvd and blu ray players. Their attempt to bring sacd to the masses was just half assed.

[@vylbird8014]

It wouldn't have lasted. Streaming eventually killed them all off. Turns out that audiophiles just aren't that big a market - most customers can't tell the difference between studio audio and an MP3 played over bluetooth earbuds.

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@vylbird8014 And now streaming can do excellent quality with lossless audio in beyond DSD-64 quality (higher sample rate PCM). Streaming can easily beat the bandwidth available on disc media allowing superior audio performance. And the issue with a scratched disc causing audible issues do not exist on modern streaming.

[@budgetaudiophilelife-long5461]

WE ARE THANKFUL 🤗 That GUS works for you and not Sony anymore 💚💚💚

[@ThinkingBetter]

The Sonoma system was using PCM natively at 352.8kHz sample rate (marketing term DXD). If the transcoded DSD output of the system sounded great, it’s thanks to the PCM master format that it derived from. Actually that DSD output is a lossy transcoding and the DXD (PCM) is closer to the original. So it’s not about DSD vs PCM but about DSD vs Red Book 44.1kHz PCM, where DSD is better.

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@Wizardofgosz I agree, CD quality is still great. The Red Book standard was created all the way back in 1980, it was aiming at providing full range frequencies of what is audible (to 20kHz) and a dynamic range beyond what music demands (96dB). Modern streaming services can stream CD quality lossless e.g. FLAC (I use Amazon Music HD). I can't care too much about DSD as it fails miserably in all my modern streaming setups where instant access to many millions of music tracks is of major value. On my Amazon Music HD service I can stream up to 192kHz 24 bits, but it's sort of overkill and the max meaningful quality is 96kHz 16 bits.

[@Veeger]

@@ThinkingBetter Amazon music HD format is inconsistant. Some are 44.1kHz 24 bit, some 96kHz 24 bit , some using the lossy opus, some 192kHz 24 bit. You can't choose what you want , you get what you're given. Also when I was using it, I found tracks with encoding faults (Frank Zappa-Watermelon in easter hay) causing horrible digital noise and I thought I'd try to report it so someone could fix it. Theres no button for problems like with Netflix. I ended up in a chat and after I'd given the track details, the guy said "we can give you money off". I wanted it fixed , I didn't want money off. They didn't fix it. They told me they get the files from the record companies and they couldn't do anything about it. I stopped my subscription soon after finding more tracks encoded with opus which is lossy and not what I'd call HD. The uncompressed CD would have been better than a lossy version. It was disappointing.

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@Veeger I've reported some tracks to be bad on Amazon Music long ago. That Frank Zappa 44.1kHz 16 bits lossless FLAC track from Amazon Music HD indeed sounds compressed and more narrow-band than even some KZbin version I just A/B compared with. This is not about technology but about people doing stupid things.

[@brandond92]

@@Wizardofgosz Not so. Around '98 Or 2000 I attended Stereophile's high-end show in the Los Angeles area. There was a demo of CD versus high bitrate audio (96/24?). They played a classical track and then a rock track in CD and then in high bit rate. They made no announcements after they started the four tracks. We were halfway through the high bit rate classical piece before I realized it was the same piece of music. IIRC they had been recorded simultaneously.

[@gustavevilleneuvedehoff-un5459]

@@brandond92 I used to own a very decent CD player that could also play lossless from USB. Thing is it played CDs quite well, not something exciting for a trained ear, but really well. What about lossless files from USB? Well, that was garbage. Now the rhetorical question - does this prove that CDs are better than lossless? And that is a frequent mistake - if something sounds better does not mean the format is better, it might mean that a piece of equipment or some stage within a device makes this happen. Let alone the source file or medium could be questioned. Bring more devices and let's measure them! :)

[@davidopalecky7318]

Yes I have purchased some of your SACDs and the sound quality is excellent!

[@JonAnderhub]

98% of DSD and SACDs are just DSD copies of PCM. It can be scientifically proven that DSD doesn't sound any better than PCM. Because SACDs are DSD 64 they contain considerably more noise than PCM and people often mistake the additional noise for extended frequency response. Converting DSD to PCM (DXD) and then converting the PCM back to DSD (to fool people into believing they are hearing a DSD recording) causes more damage and loss to recordings than recording and releasing in high-resolution PCM. Right, Paul? 👌

[@ThinkingBetter]

I'm not sure about those 2%. A pure DSD stereo recording means you have 2 microphones where each was connected to an ADC that did the exact sigma delta output that you could record into a stereo DSD track with no additional processing. Thus, I can only wonder what is the most famous of those 2% music tracks? Perhaps none of them are popular? Well, I checked the 135 pure DSD albums on the NativeDSD online site and I must conclude that nobody who is famous in music cares about making his music into pure DSD. I can successfully find those pure DSD tracks in my Amazon Music HD service and, for example, now I'm streaming the album "Reflections on beauty" (piano music) at 192kHz 24 bit lossless from Amazon. Is DSD-64 audibly better than 192kHz 24 bits lossless? I don't think so. Seems like most of these "pure DSD" tracks are available in 192kHz 24 bits lossless streaming at Amazon Music HD, so why the heck bother with DSD at all??? I can play all these tracks for what I pay already and seems they sound awesome, even those are no-name artists and music I would only use for audio system testing.

[@Veeger]

@@ThinkingBetter You are comparing the sound of your pcm 192kHz 24 bit stream which you say sounds great to DSD that you haven't even heard. You're not listening to DSD through Amazon.

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@Veeger I have an SACD player also. Actually I often do A/B comparison. Some streams online are inferior to the same CD/SACD version. Some streams online are even inferior to vinyl discs. But in other cases, streams can easily match the best of physical media. BTW, the vast majority of DVD tracks are not natively produced in DVD format but were transcoded (lossy) from PCM (DXD). No famous artist have ever produced actual pure DVD tracks. PCM 352kHz transcoded to DSD-64 is likely to sound better than PCM 44.1kHz and I would prefer the native DXD to be streamed to my DAC rather than a sample rate converted 192kHz version. Better would be PCM 176.4kHz (half DXD sample rate), which should also beat DSD.

[@louisperlman8030]

Elcasete, Minidisk and Memory Stick are other abandoned Sony hardware formats.

[@peterthorpe5341]

Hello all. I was an engineer in the team in Sony that did the initial R&D into DSD signal processing and we developed the Sonoma system. Please let me correct one misunderstanding. DSD _is_ a PCM format, the only difference is that DSD is a 1-bit/2.8MHz sample rate system rather than the 16-bit/44.1kHz of red book CD. It might seem like a strange thing that you don't see the amplitude of the wave at each sample, because each sample is either full scale positive or full scale negative, nevertheless it is still a PCM stream.

[@marcbegine]

That's why I bought up to 90% of the Octave Records. To convince others, the hardware "SACD player" should be available on a less costly level. I bought the Sony X1100-ES (plays Blu Ray video and Audio alone, SACD-1X, CD, Audio DVD, DVD, Blu Ray 4K UHD, CDR etc.) for about 600,00€ and it sounds great. PS Audio "could try" to make an equivalent in the Higher End sector for about 2.000,00$. This could attract a whole bunch of enthusiasts!!!

[@Impackon]

Which is / was the Oppo 205 I use 😁

[@dannytse8767]

When I started with SACD, they were less than US$20/disc....Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, Jeff Beck, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Police, etc. There were inexpensive SACD players like the Sony DVP-NS500V DVD-based universal player or the Sony SCD-CE595 5 disc CD/SACD changer....these players retailed for less than US$250. I also remember the Pioneer 563 universal player and a single disc CD/SACD player from Onkyo for about US$500. So, the SACDs and the players were available. Even Oppo's 203 was available for under US$600 new.

[@AllboroLCD]

Why is it that weve only recently started to see outboard SACD DAC's? I would certainly consider lack of Transport/DAC separates also contributed to poor sales early on in SACD.

[@dannytse8767]

Early SACD players do not allow the DSD bitstream to be output using the coax or Toslink digital outputs. In 2005, when HDMI came out with its version 1.2, that's when the DSD bitstream can be output digitally with the HDMI output. By that time, the SACD format was already 6 years old and the general public have accepted downloading of music as their preferred method of getting their music (streaming hasn't arrive yet). Nonetheless, SACD survived....it actually outlived MP3 and the iPod.

[@steveaustin7306]

DSD gets converted to PCM internally. It's a great format. I have masters of reel to reel at 15ips in DSD128. Wow. Nothing is copy protected for long. To bad they gouged on the price of sacd and the players. Or we'd have it replacing cds years ago. Blew it

[@rosswarren436]

There are some DACs that can handle converting DSD to analog without having to go through a conversion to PCM first, but the issue is that it only works for playing DSD files, not for any rotating disc format, which is still hampered by the stupid copy protection by Sony and locked into playback only through the DAC inside the player, a DAC that might not be all that good. When will Sony's patent run out? So aggravating....

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@rosswarren436 Most modern DACs are not actually running single bit conversion but uses multiple bits per clock for best performance; and thus aren't really natively binary sigma delta based.

[@joesmith4443]

@@ThinkingBetter Yes but some chips like AKM and Cirrus Logic have a direct DSD with no oversampling or multi bit conversion. The Sabre chips I believe do the multi bit conversion as you mentioned. It also depends on how the chips are implemented but most do have a direct 1 bit for DSD. PCM is another story those have to be deemphasized

[@rosswarren436]

@@ThinkingBetter yes, DACs like the Schiit 2/64 Bifrost are "multibit" and such DACs should sound better on average. It still begs the question of why many say R2R DACs sound better with "an immersive soundstage, imaging, and natural tonality". I'd like to know from an engineering standpoint why that is true and often observed by reviewers. I can't try out 5 different DACs (wish I could), so I wonder what am I missing if I stick with "regular" DACs? Should we all be migrating to R2R DACs? Is there any electrical engineering reason why sigma-delta/multibit DACs can't create the same psychoacoustics that an R2R can?

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@rosswarren436 When it comes to psychoacoustics, I believe proper blind tests (besides measurements) are only valid ones for DAC testing. People easily imagine improvements when there is none if a good story is told. Of course you can make great sounding DACs on silicon with sigma-delta/multi-bit. Like in so many other areas of audio, the BOM cost is not what makes great audio; passionate and competent engineering is.

[@joeythedime1838]

Paul - we need to be able to buy some PSAudio and Octave Records merchandise.

[@zackw4941]

VHS came out on top because it was the format endorsed by the porn industry. Maybe we should get DSD into porn so more people find out about it 😅

[@dannytse8767]

Beta lived on in the professional side of the business.

[@timkolacny967]

From my perspective, the Vinyl to CD revolution was more about convenience than sound quality when it came to the masses. It's the same reason most people have abandoned CDs for digital and then streaming - it got progressively more convenient. If we want a sound quality revolution, then release all the DSD masters that are out there as digital downloads instead of making me buy physical media I don't want to store and an additional hardware component I can't afford. After all, most decent DACs and streamers these days already support DSD.

[@shipsahoy1793]

The advent of the CD over the vinyl record was supposed to amount to a sound quality enhancement.

[@scottyo64]

The other night we were streaming "Top Gun -Maverick" and the internet went out. Popped in the 4k DVD and finished. Physical media does have a place. I don't mind storing records, DVDs and CDs.

[@johnwatrous3058]

@@scottyo64 That's why I have over 300 CDs and several hundred DVDs.

[@genkifd]

wonder why on average SACD is recorded -6db compared to cd?

[@james6039]

In the beginning Sony and Phillips were surprised by all the catalog sales. They knew the big artist would sell again but they were blown away at all the back catalogs selling again. Groups that didn't even chart came back into print. The real reason for CDs was to be a better format overall and get away from all the mastering and mechanical problems of vinyl. The biggest being Returns, Returns and Returns. Stores could go through a box lot of 25 records - all being defective.

[@Veeger]

Have you seen vids of LP's being manufactured? A dirty looking factory . Way too many processes that if you mess up one , it'll ruin the result. Finding fingermarks is annoying on a factory sealed LP. What? They dont have gloves? I bought an "audiophile " version of an album by Dave Brubek and on one side of the LP the centre for the grooves was 4mm off centre of the vinyl. A rookie mistake and unforgivable!

[@vylbird8014]

If playing DSD almost invariably means converting it to PCM, then... what's the point?

[@rosswarren436]

Good DACs don't convert to PCM but can convert from DSD directly to analog, but that is for playing DSD files, not from a SACD disc. Sony's deal with the devil (the RIAA) to get SACD to market now makes it nearly impossible to play a SACD to a better external DAC. You are limited to playing it through whatever "decent" DAC is inside the player, and whether it converts it to PCM first or not. Ugh.

[@dannytse8767]

@@rosswarren436 Buy a SACD player, or a universal player, with a DAC that don't convert DSD to PCM solve your problem. Oppo's 203/205 are prime examples.

[@rosswarren436]

@@dannytse8767 I'm out of buying any new physical media for the most part, content with streaming. I'll keep my fairly new CD player for sure for the 1100 CDs I own, but don't think I'll be upgrading or buying any SACD players. I'll be buying DSD files and playing them back into a DAC that handles them natively. And yeah, "free crappy lossy music" beats fairly expensive much better sounding music I guess, or it did for millions of people. It's weird in a way. The RIAA and labels fought so hard for copy protection, but now for less than $6/month I can listen to nearly all the music I want if it is still in print at CD quality or better.

[@rosswarren436]

@@dannytse8767 those Oppo's are only available used now I think. They are no longer manufactured. If I were interested in more physical media, I'd lean toward buying something still in production with a warranty. I'm sure the Oppos are great. But really for less than $2K now you can get players from both Sony and Panasonic that likely would come close in audio quality. Where are the new 8K players? But yeah, I'll stick to streaming lossless via Tidal (but might try Qobuz which some say sounds better) and playing DSD files going forward. Instead of spending $3K to buy a used Oppo, I'd rather put that $$ towards my streaming front end with a decent streamer (iFi Neo?) and a better DAC (which I haven't bought yet). DACs still seem to be changing quickly.

[@joelowens5211]

Remember 8 tracks in the car? My dad has us listening to the best of LIttle Richard ( Tutti Fruitti )...lol The vinyl record think it's not a cost but a time and hassle factor for me. That's why I love Qbuz files. High quality DAC streamer and life is easy to listen to the music.

[@phreak1118]

The big selling point for DSD back in the day that separated it from cds was that it supported 5 channel audio. Problem was that very few people listen to music on a 5 channel system. The other problem is that to consumers the physical media was nearly identical to existing cds. And lastly... to 99% of the general public there was no difference in sound quality between cds and sacd.

[@googoo-gjoob]

i have introduced dozens of people to sacd. 100% have heard the difference. most dont care enough to *pay* the difference. but _everyone_ heard the difference.

[@johnwatrous3058]

@@googoo-gjoob I totally agree. I have 2 SACD albums, The Police Synchronicity and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. I don't remember what The Police album cost, but Dark Side cost me $50 and that was too much.

[@dannytse8767]

@@johnwatrous3058 The initial SACD release of "Dark Side of the Moon" was under US$20, and even the recent SACD re-release of "Dark Side of the Moon" is only US$35. The Police albums on SACD, when they first came out, were all until US$20.. If you waited until they went out of print, then of course they cost a lot more.

[@tomehCanada]

DSD and PCM samples to compare?? WOuld love to hear them in my studio.

[@goodsound4756]

I convert PCM to DSD (on the fly) before feeding it to the DAC, usually sounds better due to better digital reconstruction filter on DSD (compared to PCM). Would love to stream real DSD quality.

[@BillyKueekSG]

I use Mac so my DSD file goes into the DAC as PCM. How do you convert Hi Res to DSD? Is there a device that does it and improve on the quality?

[@joshua43214]

@@BillyKueekSG I use HQPlayer Embedded for conversion or usampling. The desktop version works on Mac as well. HQPlayer is pretty much the gold standard for upsampling and conversion software. Be warned, most people regard DSD256 as the standard to reach, and this takes a pretty powerful processor. Two things to consider: Macs do not like to output DSD format and want to repack it as DSD. I believe there is a work around, you will have to use your Google Fu. PC's will output DSD natively over ethernet or USB with no trouble. If you are using the Mac as a general PC, you might not hear any difference - especially if is a laptop. Laptops are the worst for infecting outputs with noise, and Macs are the worst of the worst. Background processes add alot of noise to the signal. There is software for PC's to shut down background process and optimize the system for sound, I expect something similar exists for Macs. Lot's of people use Mac Mini's to good effect.

[@BillyKueekSG]

@@joshua43214 thank you for taking time to reply. Yes, when I play DSD file, my DAC shows PCM. I will check out HQPlayer. I wonder if I use Roon and stream music over LAN with the Gustard R26 if that will be better. Also got to check out how people use Mac Mini to good effect

[@ThinkingBetter]

What DAC do you use? Most modern DACs are not single bit sigma delta converters but rather multi-bit for best performance.

[@marrkzulunuz]

Regarding DSD, when can we expect the ultimate review of "Merging Technologies' Hours (Hapi) and Pyramix"?

[@contemporaryhomeaudio]

my CD's and PCM files sound pretty good through a modern DAC that converts to DSD

[@garyausten5939]

I've only owned one SACD, a Chicago album. I think I must gotten rid of it years ago because I didn't have anything to play it on, although I must have at some tie because I remember listening to it at least once. Can you really tell a difference between an expensive SACD and a regular CD played through an AVR in surround mode? I looked at the Octave website...I've never heard of most of the artists. I'd be afraid to buy something and find out that I hate it. I've seen a bunch of them on E-bay.

[@redlab3488]

Actually you can play a SACD with a CD player. It will only play at the CD level.

[@rollingtroll]

As someone who digitizes a lot of analog sources, DSD is just an absolute pig to work with. 24/192 makes me pretty happy when it comes to workability, storage space and sound quality.

[@terryjefferylee6314]

Where, other than Octave Records, can you buy/download DSD recordings. I've tried to find copies of recording I like but very few are available on SACD. Not much use having a superior format if the artist you want to hear aren't available on it and the ones that are available you've never heard of. Is the High Res offerings on streaming services DSD? If not, what is it and how does it compare? I think it's great that you, Paul/Octave Records are trying to keep the format alive but if very few recordings of known artists and popular music is being offered is it not futile to pursue it?

[@geddylee501]

Yep, cant get a Rush recording on sacd for love nor money, not to mention just about every other band/artist on the planet, sacd is a just a dream

[@dannytse8767]

@@geddylee501 Rush's "Counterpoint", "Hemispheres", and "Presto" were released on SACD by Audio Fidelity. John Lennon, The Doobie Brothers, Dire Straits, The Police, Eagles, Santana, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Mr. Big, Styx, Bon Jovi, Jeff Beck, Journey, The Rolling Stones, The Cars, Foreigner, Billy Joel, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Wham!, Bob Dylan, Elton John, ELO, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Spandau Ballet, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, etc. all have titles released on SACD.

[@terryjefferylee6314]

@@dannytse8767 Good information. I'll check out Audio Fidelity's releases.

[@geddylee501]

@@dannytse8767I talked to Kevin Shirley personally (July 2, 2014), he was the original recording engineer for Counterparts. He told me that he used the new Studer 48 track digital multi-track recorder which was a 24 bit/48kHz machine, but mastered at 20-bit/48kHz. So it's still a low-resolution recording. Even AF abandoned using 20-bit for their HDCDs since it was not much of an improvement.

[@dannytse8767]

@@geddylee501 Anything above 16 bits/44.1kHz is considered by the industry as "Hi Res".

[@johanvanderpulst5250]

Analogue Productions and Mofi records released Elvis albums from 1960 and 1961. Does it make sense to release such old recordings on SACD? These recordings were made on an Ampex 300 three track recorder with a frequency response of 15 kHz.

[@dannytse8767]

The Elvis catalog, owned by Sony, has probably been converted to DSD. After all, DSD was created to archive master tapes. And yes, Elvis sounds good on SACD. Little Richard and Roy Orbison both sound great on SACD too.

[@spacemissing]

I never dumped my records. I kept all of them. But not one of them sounds as good as the same thing on a CD.

[@davidfromamerica1871]

The definition of DSD. An Audiophile Disease.

[@johnwatrous3058]

😝Funny😄

[@therealchoiboy]

DSD's legacy is only saved in time partly due to those PS3 rippers and hardrive space becoming much cheaper imo. I love DSD. I couldn't imagine the Hifi world without it.

[@ptg01]

So PAUL: How do I play SACD's DSD layer on an SACD player attached to an external 3rd party DSD capable DAC (of different brand from SACD player) as well as understand the caveats around it (e.g. I2S pin out incompatibility) ???

[@JohnTwo1]

The problem is that many sacd players don't have a digital out. Your best choice is to find the dsd files online that have been ripped from the disc and then play those to your dsd capable dac through usb or DoP spdif

[@ptg01]

@@JohnTwo1 My SACD players have digital outs (SPIDIF/Toslink) but when it is playing its SACD layer, it outputs nothing. Plus, ripping DSD flles off SACDs is also littered with caveats.. And you are right.. acquire DSD files is the simplest way to go.. BUT in my case, I just like to play SACDs but feed it into an external DSD capable DAC. I know that's possible through I2S but I don't know what the caveats are due to pin out incompatibilities

[@JohnTwo1]

@@ptg01 I should have been more specific. Dsd capable digital outputs, spdif's data rate is not enough for dsd even if the manufacturers would allow that. So either you need something with an hdmi out like a blu-ray player that supports sacd or something even rarer a sacd player with an i2s output. For normal hdmi out you need a hometheater receiver and for i2s a dac with a i2s compatible input. Some dacs let you choose the specific i2s protocol it uses and with others they are fixed. So yeah I would not recommend any of that, it's not piracy to download files you already own fyi.

[@rosswarren436]

Sony's copy protection makes it virtually impossible (not completely impossible) but not easy, not like it OUGHT to be here in 2022. They not only killed the format, but they put the nails in the coffin. Only playing DSD FILES through a DAC that can handle them natively (without conversion to PCM) can get us where we want to be in an audiophile nirvana.

[@shipsahoy1793]

Exactly right.. whether SACD, DSD, or whatever.. just another format “promise” to make more MONEY ! 🤣🤣👨🏻 Can you say P.T. Barnum .. it’s a digital circus, no joke.

[@O_D_O_U4YA]

I own a PS audio perfect. Wave CD transport running through a Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC. is this set up adequate to take advantage of the DSD files on a essay CD?

[@Paulmcgowanpsaudio]

No, unfortunately not. The newer PST transport and our DirectStream DAC are required.

[@ThinkingBetter]

I just found that 135 music albums are in pure DSD (not transcoded from PCM) per the online service NativeDSD. To my delight, I also found that these true DSD albums can be easily streamed via my Amazon Music HD service in 192kHz 24 bits lossless without me paying an extra Dollar and also importantly, they can be played instantly with no fuss! That PCM codec is already superior to DSD-64. Other DSD tracks are down-converted from PCM (DXD), so I don't see much value in DSD for those. Am I missing something?

[@scottwolf8633]

Muscular looking power supply in that amp.

[@johnwatrous3058]

💯 Too bad they are sooo expensive. I can't justify spending more money on an amp than my car.

[@scottwolf8633]

@@johnwatrous3058 I build my own, an 800VA toroid that sources 20 Amps, one per channel will cost about 120 bucks each. I buy surplus computer grade electrolytics and then double bypass them with Panasonic tantalum dialectic and MIT/Reliable metalized PP caps. Employ the HEXFRED ultra high speed, soft recovery diodes to build the bridge rectifiers/1 per channel for the output stage. I refuse to pay as much as I can't justify either. But a little bit of Physics, Electrical Engineering, SWAG aka Scientific Wild Ass Guess, and knowing whose Topology to borrow, and Class A MOSFET output, multitiered PS, bliss can be had for pennies on the dollar, cause I'm cheap as hell.

[@Bassotronics]

If you think DSD is good, try QDM. (Quantum Density Modulation). All the quality of DSD but easy to manipulate.

[@johnwatrous3058]

Never heard of QDM, where do I find it?

[@Bassotronics]

@@johnwatrous3058 Used by Quantum home computers starting in 2050.

[@paulstubbs7678]

I think you summed up the problem with DSD, Sony made it into SACD that cannot be "copied in perfection for ever" (Paul's words), heck you cannot even get a digital stream out of most players to feed your own DAC. After vinyl came the CD, but to most, then came portable, it started with the Sony Walkman cassette, then moved onto Apple iPods, now that all lives in peoples phones, that for most, cannot even compete with a CD. The HiFi industry started out great, but the good stuff was expensive, so they started lowering the price, however most companies did this by sacrificing everything, until we had the likes of Amstrad HiFi etc. that were truly horrible. What draw does that give to entice people to seek the likes of ISR5's, Direct stream DAC's.... etc etc. Go have a listen to what's on offer - not at a specialist HiFi retailer, but at your regular shops, 99,9% Bluetooth speakers that use DSP to process the crap out of the audio to make their undersized speakers in undersized acoustically bad enclosures, powered by high distortion, low powered amps sound magical. Trouble is it you feed in anything better than 'loudness wars' trash, does not give any improvements at all.

[@sturdyblock]

Hi Paul. I'm not sure the question was answered. Regardless, always a pleasure.

[@bikdav]

I’m confused. I thought that a DSD master would make the CD and Vinyl copy sound better than what use to be.

[@andrewjackson9417]

1 nice thing is that Blu-Ray players that can play SACD's generally have a decent DAC. So while you can't send the digital signal to a good external DAC (due to copy protection) the internal DAC is significantly better than the DACs is most CD players.

[@VirusForPrez]

Files needed to rip DSD off sacd discs have all but been removed from the internet by its creator Mr.Wicked (who was offered many $$$ by SONY to do so) ,and those old PS3's with firmware 3.5 or lower are getting harder to find.So either you buy yourself an old sacd 'clunker' player and listen to dsd through the analog hole or you buy dsd files and feed them to your dac.Problem is SACD is great but nothing plays it !!!!

[@BTom16]

Does that PowerPlant have enough capacitance? lol!

[@artyfhartie2269]

SACD, DSD, PCM, LGTBQ. Are they any more codes I need to remember when I listen to Mozart?

[@dannytse8767]

Dependent on what labels your Mozart is released on, there is SHM-SACD, K2HD, Blu-ray Audio, DVD-Audio (or DVD-A), HQCD, MQA, XRCD, SHM-XRCD, Blu-spec CD, Blu-spec CD 2, SHM-CD, etc.

[@artyfhartie2269]

@@dannytse8767 I think I will just pop a cassette tape in my trusty vintage tape deck instead and relax.

[@biketech60]

My DAC doesn't do DOP , and even if it did , you can't sell me DSD recordings of Joni Mitchell , Judy Collins , The Eagles , CSN&Y , etc. None of your artists have I heard of , no favorites . I did buy one of your vinyl records and it sounds very good , but the artist is meh . I have several Clarity Vinyl records that sound better to my ears .

[@dannytse8767]

The first 6 studio albums of the Eagles are being reissued on SACD by Mobile Fidelity. They have also announced the planned release of several Joni Mitchell albums on SACD.