For Those Naysayers...

[MylesBAstor]

From what I can see they are just offering hardware and pointing users to existing sites to download hirez music.

I was simply referring to Sony's newest gear now being able to handle hi-rez digital DSD downloads.

 

[MylesBAstor]

More big-time news about Acoustic Sounds DSD Downloads site! This press release just in:

"Acoustic Sounds Inc. of Salina, Kan., the worldwide leader in audiophile recordings, signed an agreement today with Sony Music Entertainment Inc. to provide the company’s new digital download service with albums that have been produced or remastered in Direct Stream Digital (DSD), the highest resolution audio technology available.
The deal, which follows an earlier agreement reached with Universal Music Group, includes hundreds of recordings from Sony Music’s vast catalog. All of these recordings will be licensed to Acoustic Sounds’ SuperHighRez.com, the first high-resolution music service to offer mainstream albums in DSD.
Currently, there are more than 70 albums available for download on the service. By year’s end, the number is expected to reach almost 500 albums, thanks to the new deals.

Acoustic Sounds CEO and Founder Chad Kassem quotes on today's announcement:

"The big winner in all the announcements this week are consumers interested in better sounding music and alternatives to MP3s."

"Hi-resolution audio is simply about giving consumers more choices...No one wants to walk into an ice cream store and only see vanilla being offered. We want music to be offered in all kinds of flavors...and formats.""

The Sony catalog in DSD is now in play at Acoustic Sounds' Super Hirez site...great news for music lovers and audiophiles!

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I wonder what Neil's thoughts are on this? Is PONO dead or alive?

 

[Andre Marc]

I wonder what Neil's thoughts are on this? Is PONO dead or alive?

PONO is very much alive. Warner and Neil have basically bypassed DSD. They have gone the 192 Khz PCM route.

 

[microstrip]

Sony does digital downloads.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...y-new-high-resolution-audio-products/2762773/

Myles,

Can I ask you what gear are you using to listen to DSD files in your system?

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles,

Can I ask you what gear are you using to listen to DSD files in your system?

Vaporware

 

[StephenMarsh]

Open Letter to Bruce Brown

Please pardon the intrusion folks - I think I'm a little late to this party, if you will please allow me a moment to clear something up:

Dear Bruce Brown, If it is of interest to you what I use for DSD capture and conversion, you could have asked me when you friend requested me, and I accepted, on Facebook - that happened months ago - or when you invited me to 'like' your studio's FB page, that happened TODAY. Why you did not leaves me to believe you're working an axe or an angle, though I am admittedly at a loss as to which or to what end.

Here's the truth: I do not up-res my PCM captures, as you have alleged, for use as the DSD layer on SACD titles, EVER. Audio is converted and captured as DSD from the output of my analog mastering console.

If you prefer to live in your own world and make up your own reality - so be it. However, what you have done would appear to put you in direct violation of forum rule #3 which states:

3. Please do not use this forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, racist, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violates any law. We reserve the right to delete any message that in our sole opinion falls in these categories and serve up administrative action to any member because of them.

You stated something you knew was probably false and certainly defamatory. You did not substantiate your claim in any way, in spite of having a direct avenue of communication, in the case of my studio at least, with people who could simply answer the question (Steve, myself). Instead you made something up and posted it.

Here's why I take issue with that, why you merely questioning something does amount to an unsubstantiated claim and why I'm here now to set the record straight:

Because you represent yourself as an expert, forum members and web surfers alike are inclined to trust what you say. With that trust comes the responsibility to present only facts as facts and to verify the voracity of your claims through available means, should they be questioned. You sir have plainly abdicated that responsibility. You may be very good at what you do - that does not automatically mean everyone else is a charlatan, get over yourself.

An apology is warranted to not only myself, but to Chad Kassem, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, Audio Fidelity and all the forum members you've willfully misled.


PS - for the record - it's MARSH mastering, not March mastering.

Again - my apologies for the intrusion. Thank you to everyone for the BW, please carry on!

 

[MylesBAstor]

On a happier note, I'd like welcome Stephen to WBF and hope he continues to contribute to the forum!!!

Stephen is responsible for many of the those wonderful sounding audiophile releases that many of us cherish. Good to see you!

 

[Peter Breuninger]

This opens up a can of worms we should all explore. Please... all experts here chime in.

What I understand is that DSD is a great "end product" but to call a recording from beginning-to-end true DSD, it must be AAD by definition. And this is problematic... for today's reissues the record companies are not readily releasing the original master tapes and work parts to mastering labs. They are making high resolution copies such as 88/24 from (for example) the original three track masters (late 50s and 60s recordings). And this is not happening often according to Alan Silverman of ALF mastering, a two time Grammy nominee (see the below video).

You cannot master in the DSD format, so if you have a DSD recording like MA Recordings and you wish to add a little reverb or punch up the top you have to down convert to PCM for your digital mastering console. Since the majority of the world's music library was not recorded in DSD what do we really get?

 

[Andre Marc]

This opens up a can of worms we should all explore. Please... all experts here chime in.

What I understand is that DSD is a great "end product" but to call a recording from beginning-to-end true DSD, it must be AAD by definition. And this is problematic... for today's reissues the record companies are not readily releasing the original master tapes and work parts to mastering labs. They are making high resolution copies such as 88/24 from (for example) the original three track masters (late 50s and 60s recordings). And this is not happening often according to Alan Silverman of ALF mastering, a two time Grammy nominee (see the below video).

You cannot master in the DSD format, so if you have a DSD recording like MA Recordings and you wish to add a little reverb or punch up the top you have to down convert to PCM for your digital mastering console. Since the majority of the world's music library was not recorded in DSD what do we really get?

Peter, I don't believe this is accurate at all. There are a few DSD DAW's that handle the signal from start to finish. Sonoma and Pyramix for sure.

 

[Andre Marc]

Please pardon the intrusion folks - I think I'm a little late to this party, if you will please allow me a moment to clear something up:

Dear Bruce Brown, If it is of interest to you what I use for DSD capture and conversion, you could have asked me when you friend requested me, and I accepted, on Facebook - that happened months ago - or when you invited me to 'like' your studio's FB page, that happened TODAY. Why you did not leaves me to believe you're working an axe or an angle, though I am admittedly at a loss as to which or to what end.

Here's the truth: I do not up-res my PCM captures, as you have alleged, for use as the DSD layer on SACD titles, EVER. Audio is converted and captured as DSD from the output of my analog mastering console.

If you prefer to live in your own world and make up your own reality - so be it. However, what you have done would appear to put you in direct violation of forum rule #3 which states:

3. Please do not use this forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, racist, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violates any law. We reserve the right to delete any message that in our sole opinion falls in these categories and serve up administrative action to any member because of them.

You stated something you knew was probably false and certainly defamatory. You did not substantiate your claim in any way, in spite of having a direct avenue of communication, in the case of my studio at least, with people who could simply answer the question (Steve, myself). Instead you made something up and posted it.

Here's why I take issue with that, why you merely questioning something does amount to an unsubstantiated claim and why I'm here now to set the record straight:

Because you represent yourself as an expert, forum members and web surfers alike are inclined to trust what you say. With that trust comes the responsibility to present only facts as facts and to verify the voracity of your claims through available means, should they be questioned. You sir have plainly abdicated that responsibility. You may be very good at what you do - that does not automatically mean everyone else is a charlatan, get over yourself.

An apology is warranted to not only myself, but to Chad Kassem, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, Audio Fidelity and all the forum members you've willfully misled.


PS - for the record - it's MARSH mastering, not March mastering.

Again - my apologies for the intrusion. Thank you to everyone for the BW, please carry on!

Welcome Stephen.

 

[MylesBAstor]

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb09/articles/qa0209_1.htm

 

[Bruce B]

my PCM captures, as you have alleged, for use as the DSD layer on SACD titles, EVER.

Welcome Stephen..... Great first post!

When I said:Clearly Kevin states on his website that he proudly uses the PM2 converters since they are "the best". I wonder if these DSD files are just PCM upsamples?? that's called a rhetorical question. If not, it was directed at Kevin.

Audio is converted and captured as DSD from the output of my analog mastering console.

Then what do you do with it? You don't have a DSD workstation.

3. Please do not use this forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, racist, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violates any law. We reserve the right to delete any message that in our sole opinion falls in these categories and serve up administrative action to any member because of them.

You stated something you knew was probably false and certainly defamatory. You did not substantiate your claim in any way, in spite of having a direct avenue of communication, in the case of my studio at least, with people who could simply answer the question (Steve, myself). Instead you made something up and posted it.

Here's why I take issue with that, why you merely questioning something does amount to an unsubstantiated claim and why I'm here now to set the record straight:

If I stated something false.... please feel free to correct me. I'm not infallible.

An apology is warranted to not only myself, but to Chad Kassem, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, Audio Fidelity and all the forum members you've willfully misled.

Not warranted...

PS - for the record - it's MARSH mastering, not March mastering.

My mistake... thanks for the link!

 

[Julf]

Peter, I don't believe this is accurate at all. There are a few DSD DAW's that handle the signal from start to finish. Sonoma and Pyramix for sure.

It is my understanding that the DSD DAWs (at least Pyramix) work by converting the 1-bit DSD to 8-bit "DSD-wide". It is debatable if "DSD-wide" (being pretty much 8-bit PCM at the DSD sample rate) is a "real" DSD or a hybrid format, but there is in any case a conversion into an editable format, and back to 1-bit DSD again.

 

[Andre Marc]

It is my understanding that the DSD DAWs (at least Pyramix) work by converting the 1-bit DSD to 8-bit "DSD-wide". It is debatable if "DSD-wide" (being pretty much 8-bit PCM at the DSD sample rate) is a "real" DSD or a hybrid format, but there is in any case a conversion into an editable format, and back to 1-bit DSD again.

Over my head..perhaps Bruce can answer that.

 

[Bruce B]

Over my head..perhaps Bruce can answer that.

Simple editing can be done directly in the DSD domain like split, copy, paste and such. If you want to do a fade (for a few seconds), the software calculates just that portion as though it had 8 bits. The actual file is not changed, unless you render it out. If you want to stay in the digital domain, major changes, like total gain change, EQ/Comp or reverb plug-ins, then the whole files gets calculated as though it's 32/352.8kHz. This is where I got outside the box and use analog equipment to do that and then go back in through a good A/D converter to DSD.

 

[Andre Marc]

Simple editing can be done directly in the DSD domain like split, copy, paste and such. If you want to do a fade (for a few seconds), the software calculates just that portion as though it had 8 bits. The actual file is not changed, unless you render it out. If you want to stay in the digital domain, major changes, like total gain change, EQ/Comp or reverb plug-ins, then the whole files gets calculated as though it's 32/352.8kHz. This is where I got outside the box and use analog equipment to do that and then go back in through a good A/D converter to DSD.

AH, ok, Thanks for the clarification on the process.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Simple editing can be done directly in the DSD domain like split, copy, paste and such. If you want to do a fade (for a few seconds), the software calculates just that portion as though it had 8 bits. The actual file is not changed, unless you render it out. If you want to stay in the digital domain, major changes, like total gain change, EQ/Comp or reverb plug-ins, then the whole files gets calculated as though it's 32/352.8kHz. This is where I got outside the box and use analog equipment to do that and then go back in through a good A/D converter to DSD.

So what type of new music today isn't extensively edited? Classical and rock sure are. Folk? So the question is still how many "DSD" recordings are true DSD and not converted back and forth for editing?

It would seem to me that the only real DSD recordings are--and coming back to Peter's post--were originally analog.

 

[tailspn]

It is my understanding that the DSD DAWs (at least Pyramix) work by converting the 1-bit DSD to 8-bit "DSD-wide". It is debatable if "DSD-wide" (being pretty much 8-bit PCM at the DSD sample rate) is a "real" DSD or a hybrid format, but there is in any case a conversion into an editable format, and back to 1-bit DSD again.

That is the description of how (Sony) Sonoma operates; conversion of a 1-bit two level Pulse Density Modulation data STREAM (DSD) to an 8-bit PDM data STREAM. It is not PCM, which is a 2's compliment weighted, stand alone value, WORD based encoding system. An X-bit wide PDM data STREAM is simply one of a practically infinite number of encoding schemes derivable from a Delta-Sigma Modulator(s), and its number and type of feedback loops within. The key point however is that 8-bit two level "DSD Wide" is both mathematically operatable (editable), and because it operates at the same sample rate as the original DSD, there's there's no decimation filtering required as in lower sampling rate PCM conversion.

Pyramix uses an entirely different scheme. They use the Philips developed alternative to the Sony (Oxford) developed DSD Wide editing format, using 352.8KHz PCM, named DXD. As Bruce points out though, for simple edits, only the actual edit crossfade interval is rendered using DXD, leaving the remaining DSD file untouched. If a level has to be changed, let alone ANY post processing sweetening, then the entire file becomes DXD, if preformed in Pyramix.

 

[mep]

So what type of new music today isn't extensively edited? Classical and rock sure are. Folk? So the question is still how many "DSD" recordings are true DSD and not converted back and forth for editing?

It would seem to me that the only real DSD recordings are--and coming back to Peter's post--were originally analog.

And the best sounding?