I am the happy owner of a Sprout 100. I love the sound. I use a Moode player (RPi3) with a USB connection to the Sprout. All my music is stored on a NAS.
Paul explained multiple times that a PSA DAC produces a higher quality sound when sourced with a DSD stream compared with a PCM.
Is there an advantage of converting FLAC (PCM 24bit/192kHz) to DSD128 ?
This can be done in software on a PC with EZ CD Audio Converter ($40).
Comparing both is very difficult for me. When playing a DSD song after a PCM I can only say: both sound great.
Converting takes a lot of time and disk-space; so does this makes sense?
Is this an improvement for the Sprout, or only for high-end DACs, or not at all?
Paul was most likely referring to native DSD recordings and masterings rather than PCM files converted to DSD.
The Delta Sigma DAC chip in the Sprout converts the PCM to DSD (digital interpolation filter + delta sigma interpolation) prior to conversion to analog.
I doubt that any external device or software does a better job at converting PCM to DSD than the Delta Sigma DAC in your Sprout.
Therefore I seriously question that such activity will benefit your sound quality.
Any additional electronic device comes with its own source of noise that is added to you signal.
Please be also aware that you need very trained ears and very high end system to hear the difference between PCM and DSD, provided it is the same recording and mastering.
