One of the problems I see with all this discussion between the formats is source authenticity. For example, sites like Native DSD don’t insist on their namesake for what they release. This is rather common. So when we see a DSD release it doesn’t mean it was recorded in DSD it may have been recorded in PCM and then converted to DSD.
The point is, you don’t really know its pedigree.
Ok, I thought at least with the publications on this site we could be sure it’s native DSD.
Many but by far not all liner notes of SACD‘s mention the source of PCM resolutions.
At the beginning I thought an SACD means DSD quality and hires PCM is distributed by DVD-A. Meanwhile I know that SACD‘s are more a container for hires PCM than for native DSD. 
This album (recorded in DSD 256) sounds great on my system, but the IRS V would really do it justice!
A great example, as the recording and mastering engineers of the “RR Fresh” series with DSD256 recordings still don’t achieve what Keith. O. Johnsson achieves with his former analog and now 24/176,4 PCM recordings. The result is mostly independent of the format.
DSD source material is undoubtedly an audiophile product as it has major drawbacks for the general consumer, who first and foremost requires clarity about what they are buying. The drawbacks seem to be:
Many audiophiles will have storage systems, but most streaming audio equipment these days, even with DSD capability, does not have storage included or sometimes even have storage connectivity. Many people do not have a CD collection to archive or are happy to get rid of it for online sources.
What seems to be poorly understood is that upsampling of PCM files and DSD processing, done by quite a few companies as well as PSA (and PSA seem to be about the best priced), can have significant benefits and still give you access to the millions of tracks of PCM music available online.
There may be irony in the fact that the success of the DSD DAC must be based on its ability to replay PCM files, which is what the vast majority of people use, by virtue of its upsampling/processing abilities.
I’ve always been happy with PCM and if I had the money I’d have a state-of-the-art upsampler/DAC/clock, but I would never allow a format to limit my musical choices.
Kuniko is indeed superb.
You are limiting your music choices to less than 1% of what is available in PCM.
What - we can’t listen to other formats?
You can’t stream it online.
So? Can you listen to vinyl in its orignal format any other way? Never occurred to me. Sure - it can be ripped, but it ain’t the same.
You have to buy it.
Streaming is micro-buying that is mostly not going to the artist. So on behalf of all musicians, (insert expletive of choice here)
It’s more expensive than purchased PCM.
More expensive isn’t in itself bad. Only if the thing has no perceived greater value.
Once purchased you have to store it.
Hard drives and cloud storage are cheaper than any format we’ve ever had in our lives.
Even then, you don’t know if you have the genuine article.
Live dangerously, feel free to belive what you wish, but check your alternative facts.
Why would a consumer spend money on equipment that can play a format that may produce better sound quality, but only on less than 1% of the pool of music available in other formats? It’s a bit like living in Scotland and buying a convertible.
Let’s stick to digital options, shall we? I tried putting an LP in a CD player, but it didn’t fit. Plus my ripped vinyl does sound the same.
Let’s make streaming illegal and only have live music. That aside, as most people stream (see RIAA data), it’s not going to be easy to get they to pay just for a different format. I said above I thought the failure to stream DSD probably killed it as a mainstream format.
Getting people to pay more for the same music takes some persuading, unless they are audiophiles. Then it’s easy. They may not even care what the music is.
Streaming is popular because you connect to the internet and press play. It’s completely transparent. Downloading and storing is much more complex. Most consumers have an incredibly low technology threshold, which most audiophiles seem to forget.
Paul made the point that some DSD is derived from PCM, not me.
Indeed, some audiophiles buy music as a test signal. A love of Nordic music also helps.
My reading of the digital market (from RIAA reports and data on available titles) is unaffected by the fact that I listen to a lot of vinyl.
My vinyl goes through A/D conversion and I can then record the 25/192 stream from the usb socket. It sounds the same played back as it is the same data going through the same signal path. So it’s system dependent.
Yes. The only reason I have to buy music is if I cannot stream it (labels like Linn and Hyperion) or want it on vinyl. Some audiophiles may pay for DSD even if they can stream PCM, but not me.
I don’t speak whatever language your response is written in.
Yess. Audiophiles often like things that are more complex, less reliable, more expensive and commercially unsustainable. I’m campaigning to bring back 78rpm.
No you can’t. Studios record using PCM because that’s the equipment they have. Paul’s concern is that some of those get converted to DSD and sold as such, at a premium. PCM versions of DSD releases tend to be cheaper than the DSD version.
More seriously, in 2019 album and single downloads were only 7.3% of revenues compared to 63.9% for streaming. In 2015 downloads were 33.6%, much more than streaming at 22.7%. The reality is that streaming is decimating paid downloads.
CD albums peaked in 2000 at 942 million units. Download albums peaked in 2013 at 118 million units. The idea of “owning” downloads never caught on anything like CD and has actually been in decline for years. All of which informs my wonderment that PS Audio still does not have a streamer in its product range.
We live in a time historical info gives us less and less about the future! Many of us recall McKinsey study submitted to AT&T about GSM. It was based on historical info, and it was so skewed. 30 years ago, we had dial-up, 20 years ago we had ADSL, 10 years ago, we started with 0.5 mbps, today we can have upto 500 megabits per second at home. Being the miser on this forum, I have 100 mbps. 10 years ago streaming 160 kbps MP3 was a challenge. Today, anyone can have on demand 4K video with 5.1 or better.
Mass and niche HiFi manufacturers in the industrial world are adding DSD capability to their CD players, streamers, and DACs. Are they doing it because DSD has no future? Sooner or later, remastered and virgin DSD will be streamed, unless someone comes up with something so revolutionary, like Apple iOS did to Symbian.
DSD has been around for about 30 years. Sony started using it for archiving and then for multi-channel audio (SACD). It’s rather old and very cheap. You can get a DAC with a DSD512/PCM/DxD chip for very little money. My one and only DSD DAC was an Audiolab MDAC+, a sophisticated DSD DAC (on the Innuos list of Native DSD DACs) with multiple internal power supplies (like a PSA DAC) and it cost me £650 (about $800) 5 or 6 years ago.
The problem is that there are only a handful of studios mastering in DSD, the ones that do are very small and niche, and a lot of DSD is mastered in PCM, so what’s the point?
There is a very good article from about 5 years ago here:
If you go to the section " The Myth of Pure DSD:" you will see an explanation of the recording and engineering process, which really defeats the point of DSD. The summary is also very good.
DSD would require a complete revolution in the entire music industry - studio hardware, engineering skills, HD streaming, a vast amount of cost when they are struggling to make money and what for? So a few audiophiles are made happy? And in blind tests there is no statistical difference between DSD and HD PCM?
Here is Gus Skinas of Octave Records talking about DSD and his Sonoma recording system 12 years ago.
http://marqueemag.com/2008/07/industry-profile-digital-audio-pioneer-gus-skinas-fights-for-the-chance-to-do-it-right/
Again, DSD is not new and since that article, to the extent that HD PCM has succeeded at all, it has completely swamped other formats (SACD, MQA, DSD).
Why the antipathy toward an audio format Steven? Yes, it has its drawbacks and it was doomed initially in retrospect by Sony - but it must be reiterated that at the time, putting out un-copy-protected master quality recordings was a non-starter for pretty much everyone in the music business, including artists. Different times now.
You clearly have issues with it. Fine. Why try to convince everyone else that they shouldn’t like something they like? I personally felt, even in the early days with SACDs and a good Sony player, that it sounded better and more analog-like than PCM. Bearing in mind that higher-than-Redbook uncompressed PCM wasn’t available at the time unless you recorded it yourself. PCM can also sound fantastic, as can vinyl and streaming.
I think that, as with any format, if your system is optimized for it (you have good gear that takes advantage of it, and the components have synergy) it can sound fantastic. Is it a hands-down winner in all cases over other formats? No. But neither is any other format.
Hearing Joni Mitchell singing “Both Sides Now” (in her smoky contralto, recorded in 1999) directly from the DSD master in Gus’s studio, I found myself choking back tears.* I looked over at him, shaking my head. He said, “Its not how it sounds, its how it feels”. I agree. Some degree of that quality is what I heard in the format initially. It seems more capable of a visceral feeling (like analog) than PCM to me. So, while I understand the grousing some seem to love to engage in about it, I generally don’t understand the need to argue against a recording format.
Beef, can you describe the character of the PSA listening rooms (I mean character of sound quality) including. Gus‘ setup in comparison? How does the IRS room compare to Gus‘ room?
…not the thread topic I admit…
I tried and opted out of DSD. The was my choice. PSA promotes it as a format, as Gus Skinas clearly has done for years, and I have never engaged in discussion as to its quality. I will happily concede it sounds better, just to get the issue out of the way. I’m not trying to convince anyone that they shouldn’t listen to it, what I am pointing out is that if they decide to listen to a particular album or track, the chances of finding available in DSD format is probably less than 1% and it may be a PCM source or processed file in any event.
I was responding to this:
Gus Skinas’ article makes the point that record companies make decisions that are more to the benefits of commerce than music. The commercial argument for SACD and DSD becoming mainstream formats should end there.
Three major labels pursued generating MQA files, but they were encouraged to do so as they are shareholders in MQA. That has now fallen flat. It did DSD no favours as it is a PCM format and MQA helped to cement PCM as the predominant format.
DSD streaming was considered by Qobuz 4 years ago and abandoned and Tidal went for MQA. Amazon have only recently taken up PCM high definition. Even if there were any large studios doing DSD, the chances of anyone streaming it appear non-existent. So sorry to have to burst @Serhan’s bubble.
As far as downloads are concerned, that market has been in decline for years.
So I was explaining to @Serhan why it might not be sensible holding his breath for DSD streaming.
What you appear to have listed are the reasons you personally do not like/want to use DSD. None of them are particularly compelling to those who like the format, or they are unrelated, such as MQA having anything to do with DSD. You yourself use vinyl, which is expensive to do right, fiddly to use, and you can’t find every record ever made on it.
MQA and DSD had their peak marketing drive at the same time, about 5 years ago. MQA is compressed PCM. So there were two formats challenging to supplant standard PCM at the same time and that probably damaged both of their chances.
I like vinyl, just like everyone else, because it’s a physical medium, never mind the sound quality. Quite a few people collect vinyl without having a record player. I doubt anyone collects DSD downloads without a DSD DAC.
I have never suggested to people who like DSD not to use it, I’m just pointing out that the evidence indicates it is never going to become mainstream or available on streaming services.
Hey Fellas, long time listener first time caller. Have been a fan of SACD/DSD since 2000 when I had my first SACD player and ‘drop the needle’, so to speak, on a Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue SACD.
The reason for this post is the clarify what appears to be revisionist history. There was a war between formats but it was not between SACD/DSD and MQA per say.
Quick timeline to this point is SACD was launched in 1999, DVD-A launched in 2000 and iTunes in 2001. Within 2 years consumers were left with 3 new choices which guaranteed failure for some. To make matters worse both manufactures and record labels were choosing sides between SACD, DVD-A and then i-Tunes. At the time SACD and DVD-A were compared to Betamax and VHS tape war.
Anyhow, none of this impacts the enjoyment of SACDs can provide. I can sit back and listen Alison Krauss and Union Station Live all day long. Recorded in DSD all the way back in 2002 and it’s still amazing.
Right - I guess that’s what I’m saying, is that mainstream, and what everybody else wants and likes is not high on the audiophile List generally. Or at least my list. You write about mainstream as if it were in itself somehow a recommendation for a thing.
That sounds quite elitist to me. If most audiophiles were interested in DSD there would be vastly more demand for DSD recordings. Clearly there is not.
Something becomes mainstream because people like it. That has occurred to 16/44 streaming and to an extent HD streaming. It depends if you think 16/44 streaming of millions of albums is a good thing, which I do.
I don’t think there is anything better than having high quality audio files available on a mainstream and commercially viable platform. I was a Qobuz subscriber 5 or 6 years ago when it had less than 10,000 users and went bust and there were no other decent streaming services even at 16/44 bitrate. Suggest to an audiophile then that in 5 years time there would be several services streaming pretty much everything you might want to listen to and a lot of it in 24-bit formats and they’d have started salivating.
As far as I’m concerned, DSD is effectively an audiophile test signal because you can’t choose a recording and expect it to be available in DSD. You have to look at the DSD catalogue and see what you like, which is choosing format before music. That’s hardcore audiophile.
