I know this has been covered before but i’m confused. What is the best software to downconvert DSD 128 down to DSD 64? I’m not looking to convert to pcm, i only want to convert to DSD 64.
Permanently?
Streaming?
On which operating system or device?
windows and permanently. I’d like to be able to play them back via the bridge.
TASCAM Hi-Res Editor is excellent.
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I will second that. And if you’ve got any DSD128 files that are .DFF, the conversion to DSD64 .DSF was -albeit a tad slow- really good in my experience.
Tascam hires editor and Korg Audio Gate.
The Tascam can’t do batch conversion, Korg can (and meanwhile even supports DSD256 as Tascam already did).
Both convert without -6dB drop and interim PCM conversion (which all other converters I got to know don’t)
Thank you! So not much (if any) degradation in sound?
I’m quite sure those two are the best converters, but to be honest, as I can’t play higher than DSD64 with the Bridge, I have no comparison.
Why not using Roon to downsample?
Don’t use roon. Plus doesn’t it use pcm in its downconverting?
Once you get to high enough sampling rates, the reason for distinguishing between PCM and DSD pretty much goes away. Even inside the DS DAC, all inputs including DSD get mapped onto a ~56MHz 50-bit sample space which if you look at one way is PCM yet in the frequency domain is still entirely recognisable as DSD if that’s what the input was. It truly doesn’t matter at this level.
I don’t know for sure but I would be surprised if any DSD rate conversion could be done without the waveform being temporarily represented in a high res “PCM-like” format – other than by doing actual DSD playback to analog and then re-recording in the new DSD sampling rate.
Some of the earlier DSD sample rate converters used their built-in convert, say, DSD64 to DXD (32/352.8k) and then converted that DXD to, say DSD128. Doing the conversion correctly (skipping DXD) in the highest sample rate can temporarily have some wide registers and use many bit adds, but doesn’t really ever need to generate PCM anywhere, just 5, 6 or 7 weird intermediate integrator values which wouldn’t look a lot like the input signal if interpreted as PCM.
I think Roon, JRiver MC, etc. are now doing credible on the fly conversions from one DSD rate to another. But my advice is still to try what you think might be the best conversion path, but also try converting DSD to, say, 24/176.4 and feeding that to the DS - I know that that will sound better than some converters out there but what really matters is which you want to listen to.
On a different note…which one (64 or 128) sounds better? I’m upsampling to 128 right now but also have the option of 64. Any thoughts on why one might prefer one over the other?
Probably 128, 64 is near the edge: 128 has another octave for filtering so the ultrasonic noise doesn’t have to grow as soon or as high. I wouldn’t upsample 64 to 128 outside the DS (but, hey, if you like the sound better, go for it.)
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Ted, Jriver etc. (other than Korg & Tascam) still ad the -6dB when converting between DSD rates, so I assume it still goes over PCM?
Do you say downconverting DSD 128 or 256 to 24\176 is better on the DS (for Bridge use) than downconverting it to DSD64 with e.g. the same Korg/Tascam? I wonder why but that’s interesting and worth a try.
I don’t know if the -6dB is the kiss of death or not. They are worth a listen, rather than just ruling out out of hand.
Converting DSD to PCM is a fundamentally simpler and possibly less “lossy” process than DSD to DSD. So if the loss in going to 24/176.4 is less than the conversion to DSD loss (even if using a higher PCM rate) you might get better sound - it depends on your preferences and the quality of the -> DSD process (no matter whether DSD -> DSD or PCM -> DSD.
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Thanks Ted, that’s very interesting and good to know! So if you say downconverting DSD128+ to 24/176.4 is the best choice when playing over the DS/Bridge (better than DSD64 or 24/192), then that’s the way to go for me now (without having to compare my ass off between formats, as I hate smallish comparisons 
)
Yep, at the levels of differences we are talking about personal preference trumps technical details. When I’m listening personally I don’t care about differences this small if the music is still involving.
Two more thoughts Ted:
It will be interesting if Korg/Tascam do the DSD-PCM downconversion (they also support it) without … and Jriver/Roon etc. with the -6dB effect (I never tried). Of if there’s always a loss of -6dB in DSD-PCM conversion.
The other thing is:
when labels offer e.g. their DSD256 recordings in different lower DSD formats. Would you also say their DSD downconversion is inferior to a home brewed DSD-PCM downconversion?
-6dB is a good thing in DSD -> PCM (-4 is sometimes necessary, but -6dB is completely safe) When going from DSD to DSD it’s not necessary - the intermediate values do need to keep the extra bits tho. I don’t know how many do a conversion from DSD to DSD without going thru PCM. Some SDM’s would require going thru PCM, but not all do.
Pro’s often have better conversions available than the consumer market, also some have the equipment to do simultaneous conversion from the last analog stage to multiple resolutions of DSD.
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