Did you think about using HQ Player pro (if it really enables to do everything in DSD even at high sampling rates but with some more effort) or I s there a no go reason of complete functions missing?
Reading between the lines, it seems to me that remastering houses like HD Tracks and HDTT will take a Redbook pressing or an SACD or even a DSD128 and upsample it to DSD256, turn around and sell it for a profit.
I’m assuming along the way enhancements are made to the finished product like levels or some type of EQ because you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
This got me curious about HQ Player Pro. Could you take a 24/96 track and upsample it to DSD 128 or DSD256 and make modifications along the way to improve the source?
Per the Signalyst site: “It is mainly intended as a mastering post-production tool for producing high-quality final distribution files in various formats.” It is not a DAW, which is what is needed, and what Pyramix and Sonoma are. As Rushton noted, “Sony never further developed Sonoma beyond DSD64. No one else has been willing to make the investment needed to fully develop the workstation tools in DSD.”
No, no, and no.
Later, addition…
@Rob_W, please accept my apologies for being so short in my initial reply. Allow me to elaborate, and perhaps others will add in. You present a reasonable question and should receive a better reply.
First, HDTT does not work from SACD or other digital sources. With very limited exceptions, they transfer from analog tapes. Some of HDTT’s source tapes may be commercial 4-track tapes, some commercial 15ips tapes, some from archival tapes via various collectors and recording engineers, usually as 15ips tapes. I don’t know about HD tracks.
Yes, there have been some cases of simply upsampling lower resolution files, but for the most part the larger retail houses (Presto, Qobuz) release just what the commercial companies send to them and are the mercy of what they receive. If they receive something that has been mis-identified by the label, they are pretty quick to correct it.
Second, you are correct that a silk purse cannot be made out of a sow’s ear. I completely agree. And this is why, as consumers, we should seek to determine the provenance of the digital files to the extent we can do so. I greatly wish that the retail companies would be far more transparent about the provenance of the recordings they sell. NativeDSD is attempting to do this, but even their data is often incomplete because they are at the mercy of what their labels tell them.
A lot of jiggery can occur in digital files. But remodulating a DSD file to a higher resolution is not the same as upsampling a PCM file, remodulating does not have the same damaging effects. If the file is DSD, then a product like HQPlayer Pro can remodulate the DSD file into higher and higher frequencies of DSD while keeping the file purely in the DSD domain. NativeDSD does this for some albums as part of their “Higher Rates Program” which you can read about here. Whether the result makes an improvement in playback from the original file is highly dependent on your DAC and how it processes DSD.
Third, moving a 24/96 track to DSD will not make it sound better. Plus, once in the DSD domain there is very little one can do in the way of EQ to improve the sound. Moving the 24/94 file into a digital audio workstation and then manipulating the file in PCM may or may not help the sound of the file, depending on the problems with it (if any). Upsampling the 24/96 file to a higher rate of PCM may or may not make it sound better depending on how your DAC processes PCM.
Hope this helps a bit.
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So Paul, two questions:
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What about my DirectStream DAC? What format sounds best? When ordering hi rez files should I order their DXD or DSD format?
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Why would a company record exclusively in DXD (PCM 352.8) and then offer DXD and DSD options?
Background… I just exchanged some emails with 2L where they informed me that they record exclusively in DXD and their DXD download is the highest quality option. Today on their website store, they do not offer DSD downloads (stereo) only DXD… however nativedsd.com offers 2L stereo in multiple DSD and a DXD format. Now I don’t know where nativedsd.com got their DSD files… did 2L provide them or did they create their own… I don’t know. But I do now have the option of buying 2L in their native DXD or DSD options. Hence my question restated: given I have a DirectStream, what file type should I buy?
Peace
Bruce in Philly
I am about to order some titles from 2L and I am forced to make a binary decision.
Indeed, the classical world were the earliest adopters of digital and never looked back. They spent the best part of 10 years using digital rather than analogue recording to make vinyl records !! For examples below.
@Rushton “… willing to make the investment …”. That’s the nub of it, because SACD and DSD have been commercial failures and any development of the technology would not be an investment, it would be poring money down a black hole.
Octave, Blue Coast and a few others may make a handful of recordings for a microscopically small market of people willing to pay twice the price of a PCM download (or nothing if they can stream it) and I doubt anyone can make a profit purely out of DSD.
Maybe Octave or Blue Coast would like to spend a few million dollars on software development for a product hardly anyone uses? If Octave or Blue Coast won’t do it, why should anyone else? Maybe you could start a crowdfund to develop a DSD editing suite.
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@bruce-in-philly , I’m sure Paul will respond to your question about his DAC, so I’m offering a reply related to NativeDSD since I work with them a lot. NativeDSD receives from 2L a copy of the edit master DXD file. That is what they make available for download. But, given the demand for DSD files and for lower rate FLAC files, NativeDSD also renders that DXD file into various DSD resolutions and FLAC resolutions using Merging Technologies’ Album Publishing software which creates these files as output from a single pass of the DXD master. NativeDSD says that for various DACs, one or another file format may sound better given how the given DAC processes digital data.
I will also be interested in learning what Paul believes will be best with his DirectStream DAC.
Thanks! I thought Sonoma could do what’s needed but the only disadvantage is that it just works up to DSD64.
So I understood now that Sonoma, Sadie (?) and HQ player are not suited for all or part of mixing/mastering/editing of DSD.
Merging Technologies developed DXD recording in their Pyramix system and it can be output as anything, mp3 to DSD256, and often is. 2L record exclusively in DXD because that’s what Merging recommend. You may find this interesting, posted elsewhere the other day.
The 2L label is part of a much larger commercial operation. So obviously using DSD capture is not going to work. It seems OK for a few small labels doing things in their own time, and the DXD recordings I’ve bought sound great transcoded to 24/96 or 24/192, but DSD for commercial use? Impossible.
Very few people actually have hardware that can play DSD128, DSD256, 24/352 or 24/384 files. Offering DXD and DSD files probably increases the chance potential customers can actually play them, and a premium price is charged for those files. So I think the offering is for purely commercial reasons, nothing to do with sound quality.
Great response, thanks!
@stevensegal , for me the desire to hear more Pure DSD releases is purely selfish. The sound quality can be so much better than PCM. At the same time, I am delighted by the marvelous DXD releases from labels like 2L, TRPTK, Northstar Recordings, Sono Luminus, Sound Liaison… I’m just disappointed that so many labels have abandoned DSD.
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It’s the Betamax/VHS thing all over again😝
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The problem is, for the mass market not even the sound quality difference between MP3 and lossless plays a major role, not to speak of a quality difference between DSD and PCM only a small percentage of high end folks can identify.
But the spread of a technology is a quite good indicator for its quality…the smaller the spread, the better the technology … unfortunately 
I would suggest the smaller the spread the less the technology is attuned to consumer needs. A format that does not give a consumer any value even if they have a $50,000 audio system fails any commercial test. A smartphone that costs $300 to make, is packed with the latest tech and sells hundreds of millions of units annually passes every test, and you can use it to stream HD music to your $50,000 hifi.
@stevensegal, we will always disagree about the virtues of high resolution DSD and DXD, my friend. I don’t argue about commercial success, and I concede your point.
But as a music lover and audiophile, I’m happy to be identified among that niche of listeners who will always value the best sound quality I can obtain from the various music sources available. And, I’ll keep encouraging folks to hear some of the best sound quality one can achieve from our home systems given the needed investment in equipment to play it. So, I’ll keep posting in the “Your Best DSD256” thread, because recordings made available to us in Pure DSD256 are truly of the best sound quality I get to enjoy.
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I enjoy many recordings captured and produced in DXD, usually scaled down to 24/96 PCM.
I think there are more labels doing DSD now than there ever were. It’s just that the consumer never took much interest and within a few years Sony and Phillips gave up on it. There are now lots of labels doing a few handfuls of releases. Linn did something like 500 DSD recordings, almost as many as are available on nativeDSD, but they no longer sell them as DSD, you have to suffer their marvellous 24/192 products.
DXD is an excellent recording format as illustrated by the superb recordings being made by 2L, Northstar Recording, TRPTK, Sono Luminus, Sound Liaison, Lawo, Pentatone and many others. I wish more labels committed to staying with PCM would at least step up their game to DXD.
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All products designed to please aficionados are always limited in distribution; only the truly enthusiastic associate and desire these products, be they audio, watches, cars, shotguns, dogs, clothes, etc.
These are not lowest common denominator offerings.
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I hardly ever listen to historic classical releases. I sold 90% of my classical vinyl, kept about 150, and hardly ever listen to any of them. If I wanted to listen to one I wouldn’t spend $40 on a DSD256 transfer, I’d spend $5 on the original vinyl or stream it for free. I’m more likely to spend $40 on a live performance. Anyway, my audio system can only play DSD64.
Some nice music tomorrow night, I don’t know what, a surprise package.
https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/the-royal-ballet-a-diamond-celebration-details
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I beg to differ, having read a lot about product design and my son is a product designer by profession.
It’s usually far harder to make a supremely good product that is desired and affordable to millions, than a product that is made inefficiently in small batches, is usually unreliable and had huge profit margins required to cover the marketing costs.
My father wore Patek Phillipe and Audemars Piguet for 60 years and new has an Apple Watch. People buy in to things and defend them to the death, sometimes they see the light. I remember years ago a friend smashed up his top of the line Bentley and it needed a months long repair. Bentley loaned him a Fiat 500 Abarth. He loved it so much he bought a Fiat and told Bentley to sell his car, he never saw it again.
People buy into exclusivity. They would expect the product is better, some times it is, sometimes not. My wife and I tend to do this when we travel.