DSD

[tony]

Got to hear this yesterday for the first time thaniks to ken who was raving about it in his quiet way.
From what I heard this stuff is really good and looks likely to me that Ken is right this will be the next big thing if it is
not already. Don't fully understand all the terminology Dop DSF DSD, converting SACD to Dop. DSD on the fly etc etc but the music
makes some special sounds.

[Aleg]

Got to hear this yesterday for the first time thaniks to ken who was raving about it in his quiet way.
From what I heard this stuff is really good and looks likely to me that Ken is right this will be the next big thing if it is
not already. Don't fully understand all the terminology Dop DSF DSD, converting SACD to Dop. DSD on the fly etc etc but the music
makes some special sounds.

Tony

DSD
Is a 1-bit encoding technique as opposed to PCM which is a multi-bit (8/16/24/32) encoding technique. They both capture music information in a digital format, but in a completely different way.
DSD is used on SACD discs whereas PCM is used on CD/DVD/BluRay-discs.
SACD discs are protected and cannot be read except by license of Sony. That's why you'll never find a drive capable of reading SACD for use in a regular computer.
Sony used to have Playstation 3 devices that did have an SACD drive and also had firmware inside that allowed to install your own operating system and software on the PS3. At one point someone managed to decode the master encryption key that Sony used to encrypt the access to the SACD drive. This has subsequently been used to create a ripper program that could rip SACD-discs to a regular drive in either a complete image file (iso) or as separate tracks in dff or dsf format.
Sony blocked the possibility to install your own operating system alongside the PS3 one from a certain version of the firmware. But there are/were still some around that had the old firmware and these have become very sought after. Luckily I have one and use it to rip my own SACDs.

DoP = DSD over PCM.
It was invented by a few hardware DAC designers because Apple only supports PCM over USB connections and no DSD. So they came up with a way to encapsulate the DSD-stream inside a PCM-format so they could fool the USB-protocol on Apple.
It does require encapsulating the DSD-stream into PCM, transport it over USB or SPDIF or any other suitable transport, and unpack it in the DAC.
Normally both the player doing the encapsultation and the DAC doing the unpacking need to know this DoP protocol.
As I will point out there are also programs that do the encapsulation offline so the player doesn't have to know how to do this.

DSF / DFF:
These are two ways of formatting DSD streams into files. One is invented by Philips (dff) and the other by Sony (dsf). They contain the same DSD-datastream but just in a different container format, just like WAV and AIFF.

DoP encapsulation:
For windows there is an encapsulation program called "DSD to PCM Encapsulate" found here
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kc5rs1itjipr ... teTool.zip

It is a java program that works on dff files.
I have written a small script that will decode an SACD-iso into dff files and automatically encapsulate them into DoP.
The scripts and required programs are found here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jjyza5yketxy ... P-jRFTGE3a
One prerequisite is you have to install Java if you haven't already.

It can also be done using foobar and special plugins as described here: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-s ... uch-16346/


And for Mac or Linux users there is a GUI based application found here: http://www.rendu.sonore.us/apps.html


Cheers

Aleg

[tony]

Many thanks Aleg for all the info and the links appreciate it

[Aleg]

Many thanks Aleg for all the info and the links appreciate it

Hi Tony

I hope it is easy enough to understand?!

I have added a dropbox link to a directory containing the batch scripts and 2 programs to decode an SACD-iso file and to encapsulate the dff-files into DoP-wav files.

Cheers

Aleg

[cvrle59]

I found DSD very intrigued when I auditioned Hugo for the first time, back in Spring. I was listening my music at the dealer by MQn, and a guy walked into the store for the same reason, to see Hugo. He saw that I was browsing through my library by JRiver, and he asked me to play it from there with conversion to DSD on fly. I kind of liked it, beside the point that I liked MQn better (didn't argue at the time), but everyone else in the store agreed with that guy. They liked better conversion by JRiver. Once I downloaded first DSF files I learned actually how good DSD is, especially last couple of days, after I replaced my USB cable (thanks Ken for advice). There is definitely something in DSD that sounds right. I sent an email to Adam last night (we always joke about TT), that I finally hit the point not wishing a good LP12 (with tons of records), or similar, any more. Music from DSD is so natural, and fluid like nothing else. I always enjoyed Patricia Barber's music, but in DSD (Modern Cool, and Night Club) is something else.
I fall to sleep at least 10 time last night listening Night Club, I couldn't stop it, to go to the bad.

[sebna]

The problem with DSD is music selection. Altogether there is not so much of music and possibly even less of what one really likes or would like to listen in this format.

Even less of it is native DSD. A lot of DSD is PCM converted to DSD and sold as DSD... finally most of currently produced DSD music is classical... and a bit of Jazz.

But maybe it will change? First attempt has failed and died in form of SACD. Should be interesting if they can make it work this time. Certainly the new wave of DACs are ready for it.

[tony]

Similar issue as Hi res Seb. John was over last night having a bit of a listen to some tracks on DSD on the Meitner.
It wasn't just a listening session with a bit of banter. Used MQn 5.07avx to play the PCM file of the compared tracks and Jplay xstream/hibernate with all sample rates set to 1024. No definitive view one person preferred DSD the other thought PCM had the edge. Found that the sound levels where not matched. PCM was playing louder. Sure the topic will inspire some discussion over time.

Comparison tracks were 2 from the we get requests album, Track one M Waters Folk Singer and Dave Brubeck's Take Five.
Used simply because PCM/DSD versions were available.

The video linked by Rocker in the Hi End bar probably explains why most people will not be putting too much effort into sourcing DSD versions of a lot of modern music.

[jkeny]

Yea, I was in Tony's talking flooring DIY & listening to DSD
DSD sounds different, for sure & I agree with the description of flow to the music. AT one point I thought it was because the midrange was emphasised at the expense of the HFs but repeat listening to the same Dave Brubeck track showed I was wrong.
We did discover a volume difference between a track in DSD & PCM (don't know if they were from the same mix?) which confounded our listening so I guess we need to be more careful in all our listening settings.

[Sligolad]

New firmware to improve the Meitner is out so hope Seb can introduce the improvements during your next session.
I look forward to hearing it when I get back from my travels as there are some positive responses on CA so far.

If you can get JPlay on low ultrastream, with low buffers on driver and directlink then DSD sounds very full bodied to me compared to PCM hiRez.
Cheers, Pearse.

[tony]

Ah ok I can adjust ultrastream down using the meitner it is still set at the ciunas setting. How low can I go?
I think I am at lowest setting on the buffers(driver)

The firmware update is done using the maint usb port? I managed to find that first and got no music(doh!)

It is richer sounding as is Pearse.