Is it really DSD?

When purchasing media how does one know if it is trull DSD or not? Sometimes it is PCM instead.

[gotham]

It was recorded in 1965, so clearly it wasn't "recorded in DSD"
He calls it a "DSD disc", so presumably that means it's an SACD.
Plenty of SACDs were mastered from high rez PCM files. In fact, I'd expect you'll find that most were. This has been pretty much normal practice for SACD reissues of older analog recordings, allowing them to edit, de-noise, and use things like Plangent processing. .
That Perfectwave Preamp looks sweet, When is it coming out?

[AMGOSUK]

Thanks Paul - I heard from a DCS tech rep saying (I paraphrase greatly) that Classical style music is better on DSD whereas ROCK is better on DSX -- and of course the filters they have built/use in their premium DACs/up samplers support this. Give this and other comments it would be worth a short overview of these high-res formats - what is an SACD, DSD, DSX, MQA, etc.. and YES of course the recording a should be captured either entirely analogue or at a higher sample rate/ larger bit depth than is then delivered to us physically. But then we have the "trend" of upsampling. Same for upsampling - SACD should come as Direct Stream digital (DSD) - but there are different types of DSD sample rates - Single Rate DSD (DSD64) is the standard used for most SACD discs - (2.8224 MHz 64x normal CD "quality). The format used for SACD media.. But then there is Double-rate DSD128 (5.6448 MHz 128x). Since its establishment, content creators have made DSD128 recordings available, such as the audiophile label Opus3), Quad-rate DSD256 (11.2896 MHz 256x); Octuple-rate DSD512 (22.5792 MHz 512x) and last but not least Sexdecuple-rate DSD1024 (45.1584 MHz 1024x).
The best and certainly most expensive up-samplers will take a signal (even a DSD64) and upsample it to a higher standard -- yes they upsample but they all apply a "filter" and this combination seems (well in some cases) to make a big "improvement" -- yes in the highest end (already ridiculously great) systems.
Can you provide some guidance - lets damp down the snake oil. If one has to spend $80-100, 000 to hear the benefits then OK. If one only hears a difference at this level and there is little benefit upsampling or even DSD without a matching quality system then OK as well. But for the majority - CD quality (44.1Hz heard on spks or bluetooth headphones/ear buds) is really all you need and will be able to hear.

[johnmarchington]

The Solti "Ring" cycle has been released on SACD, so DSD must be involved in the remastering for that format at some stage. They were all originally analogue recordings, so I guess the engineers made 24/192 PCM masters first before transferring them to DSD.

[SuperMcgenius]

The Prototype looks like a balanced preamp.

[keithlevkoff]

According to the actual Decca release notes, this is a Hybrid SACD, with the SACD portion:
"Transferred and remastered in HD sound at 24bit / 192kHz from the original two-track stereo mastertapes".

Amazon SHOWS the two-disc version as SACDs, with the SACD logo on the front, but garbled the description.
Note that this will supposedly ALSO be released in other formats, including vinyl, and Dolby Atmos on Blu-Ray.

[get-the-joke]

Recorded analog, processed in PCM, sold on SACD which is encoded in DSD. The only question is, was it first transferred from analog to DSD and would that make a difference?

[brianmoore]

The problem with the Ring - the Ride of the Valkyries - SACD is that it needed restoration because it is an old analog recording. You can't do that restoration in DSD. They had to use PCM for the restoration. Afterwards they transferred it to DSD, which is what you are hearing on every SACD.

It isn't "pure" DSD, but it's the best they could do with this particular release. Over the past few years, things are becoming fixable in audio that were never fixable before thanks to more advanced software - that works only in PCM. It's a trade-off, but the benefits outweigh the one minor drawback, unless you would prefer to listen to a damaged tape in glorious DSD.

DSD is great. Pure DSD recordings are great. All the old stuff was recorded in analog and transferred to DSD, but any editing or restoration of damaged original sources must be done in PCM. That's not really a problem. The end result is still DSD on your stereo, which is the weakest link in the chain. DSD is a far simpler source for the end user (you), and simpler usually sounds better.

[davemeyers]

many many many HD recordings are nothing but upsampled 44.1K 16bit files. many SACD recordings are just other files transferred to DSD. they do this same thing with old movies on blue ray. the movie company's in most cases....are NOT going back to the original master tapes and RE-SAMPLING to the new container format. its the same content, just put into a different container. Be it, HD tracks, DSD, Blue Ray, 4K Blue Ray etc etc etc etc often times is the same old content, just repackaged into a new container. huge scam

[christiansieder]

To my knowledge, every piece of digital music, no matter whether recorded live or transferred from an analog tape, are first born as DSD (or at least in a very similar bitstream format), since all modern A -D-converters (Delta-Sigma-converters) output a bitsream format, which then needs to be converted to PCM for mixing. Why and how reconverting this PCM back to DSD should sound superior than the original PCM-mix remains a mistery to me.

[teknolojigundemi]

Hope you persuade more artist make records at your studio. If you succeed an international artist like yo yo ma, it will be great.

[johnnytoobad]

The vast majority of SACD's come from "edited and/or altered PCM" files.
Those in turn may come from 2nd or 3rd generation analog "master" tapes.
DSD is just used as another format to encode the data for the SACD "layer".
(and a great marketing gimmick....)

[hmsworcester]

Looked it up, it’s an SACD.

“Sound format: 24 bit/192kHz (Hybrid)”

To confuse things further it says in the description:”can also be experienced in Dolby-Atmos for the first time.”
I guess the text refers to another release, maybe Apple music has an Atmos version.

[ThinkingBetter]

DXD is PCM and I would argue that it's better to transcode to half the sample rate PCM than to DSD being a totally different codec. When you hit a sample rate of 192kHz and 24 bits, I don't really see much value in getting any higher. In fact, 192kHz 20 bits would be just as good due to how much you can actually reproduce in any audio gear. Saving a recording track as sigma delta DSD makes some sense but as you need to mix and master the tracks, any modern studio process will end up with a PCM output. I rather have the native mastering output (call it DXD) than some lossy transcoded DSD format of the PCM DXD file.

[BrentLeVasseur]

Hey Paul, have you compared 32bit float PCM capture to DSD? Xoom offers a 32bit float microphone amp/recorder for XLR microphones. 32bit float is similar to Raw image format for cameras.

[scottwolf]

At 2:23 in, are those large black caps in the upper left of the frame, with the gold lettering, bypass caps?

[davidclarke]

I'm guessing Hi-Res PCM files would be better sounding converted to SACD than it would be to 16Bit 44.1khz CD. Otherwise, like you say having the original Hi Res PCM file would be the best option without any conversion.

[steveodian]

Looks like a new Perfect Wave preamp is on the way😄👍

[bikdav]

That brings up another question. What’s the point of putting a DSD recording onto vinyl since vinyl doesn’t have the resolution and dynamic range? Is there something that I don’t understand?

[AmazonasBiotop]

Instering how the mind works.
First "oh, seams a good idea to put my hand in the electronic withe a lot of caps.."

Then after realizing and analyzing that the stack of prototype with naked electronics is actually unsteady and wobbly.
And the mind keep on pushing.. "I want to keep stuffing my hand into that.. Where should I stuffit somewhere?"
So I look cool and relaxed as a clamp..

Ööö maybe "nowhere".. There inside when it is not designed for YouTubers.. Poking around..
I GUESS if it where OK then we don't need a lid at all on that box.. Try to get that trough the regulations 😂

[shipsahoy]

There are CDs out there that say “DSD remastered” and they’re basically recordings from the old analog days, which use “utilize dsd encoding” according to the record company; to tell you the truth, they don’t sound as good as the way they’re marketed.. they actually sound worse than if they were just normally produced AAD type CDs. Studio recordings are artificially bright and old live recordings seem to get exposed with the worst nuances
from the original recording. Avoid these. In fact, newer remasters of all recordings seem to be getting worse and worse these days, not just the volume wars era. Over compression is still a disgustingly prevalent tactic. On some of these remasters, the possibility exists that there’s no way to go back and redo a better master either, which is really sad, and the worst stupidity
of all of it.