Request for DSD256 playback

For those interested, Blue Coast Records is organizing an information session on recording, mixing and mastering in DSD at the end of October. It is unclear if the session(s) will be free or require payment. Those interested in learning more can provide their email for more information here:

I have no affiliation to Blue Coast or any other music producer. Just sharing as an friendly fyi

Cheers!

Some weird dCS commentary in the comments of PS Audio’s “Paul Posts” column today:

https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/hearing-inside/#comment-311924

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I just read part of it and can confirm, it is “off the rails”

: )

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Andreas Koch - one of Sony’s original SACD/DSD co-developer;

And so, you know the advantage of going to [DSD] 256 wasn’t really that great, for the DAC,… but in the A-to-D there’s definitely a merit and there’s an advantage.

So what this all means is for archiving for A-to-D conversion, definitely 256, but on the DAC side, if you’re not careful, you may just ruin the whole thing.

So, the sweet spot really is at 128fs.

(From @ 25:13min onwards)

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You’re missing out. There is some very fine music there.

Of note, @Anupc: As I’m sure you know Andreas Koch is also the founder of Playback Designs and their DACs process up to 4x DSD (11.2 MHz).

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True! Still, given that recent video, I wonder about his candid view of the true value of DSD256 for playback. :thinking:

Interestingly, unlike Chord and MSB, DoP on the Playback Design machines are limited to DSD128; suggesting a (current?) limitation. So, DSD256 support must be via USB with Windows/32bit-XMOS-Driver or Ethernet with a software player that supports native DSD streaming (like Roon).

All that said, I still haven’t really encountered any DSD256 albums that’s “specularly” better than it’s DSD128 version. Have you? If so, which?

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I had the same thought @Anupc : )

Re: the connection, I can share that when I looked closely at the MSB Reference DAC (which I hold in high regard), I was highly encouraged to use MSB’s proprietary USB connection and not Ethernet, a point I found interesting and previously shared in another thread.

As @PAR is one of the only people on earth who possesses both the dCS and MSB stacks, he is well-qualified to comment on 2x+ DSD versus 1x SQ …

“As @PAR is one of the only people on earth who possesses both the dCS and MSB stacks, he is well-qualified to comment on 2x+ DSD versus 1x SQ …”

For the record that wouldn’t be me. I only have dCS digital equipment.

I’m sorry about that Pete. I meant @PaleRider

It’s true that MSB generally recommend their Pro ISL/USB connection over their Network Renderer. And like dCS’s recommendation of their Ethernet input over their other inputs, I believe it’s a recommendation worth following. I personally despise USB, but that’s irrational, and it’s just something that Pinot helps me handle. :wink:

The MSB Network Renderer can deliver 256DSD. Their latest USB ProISL/USB modules deliver 512, but I believe they will be able to go higher. And I have to admit that this combo pretty much wipes out any objections to USB, with one minor exception from my point of view: they do not permit software control of the DAC for things like volume.

As for SQ differential, I’ve mentioned before, it’s difficult to have a “credible” comparison between a headphone system and a speaker system in two different rooms. The experience is too different, whether a short term or long term comparison. But for a while, I did buy multiple copies of DSD albums at different rates to try and compare 64 and 128 and 256 on the MSB, listening primarily to the Stax 009/T2 combo. The pleasure in that little experiment lasted maybe 10 days. Too many factors, from recording provenance to expectation bias, made it impossible to conclude with any certainty that higher rated DSD sounded better. To me, that doesn’t mean it can’t. It just means I couldn’t hear it on the recordings I owned. And it doesn’t mean that in the future, I wouldn’t find different recording rates easily discernible if recording processes were to evolve to take advantage of them. So, for me, right now, both the Vivaldi and the Select remain end-of-game.

P.S. So, why care if dCS doesn’t offer a higher DSD rate? It’s just the marketing arms race. I’d hate to see such quality offerings regarded as second rate in the numbers-obsessed audio press and marketplace. But, from my personal POV, it’s really irrelevant. :beers:

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Thank you very much Greg for sharing your thoughts. You are always so thoughtful and I’ve learned a lot from your posts and DMs. My minor attempt of a contribution is this:

I expect a company that positions itself as making the best DACs in the world, to be on the forefront of technology. I expect them to do it proactively, because it wants to be there, not to wait and make its customers beg and plead for features.

I’ve owned dCS gear for over 12 years and the only reason I have recently looked more closely at other brands, in particular MSB, now is because they have these features already. I want the luxury of being able to download higher res music and do the tests @PaleRider describes myself. Maybe my conclusion will be the same, maybe it won’t be. Right now I can’t, without borrowing gear, despite having “one of the best DACs on earth.” That annoys me.

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I completely grok that.

Speaking of which, I received an indiegogo ad for the Zorloo ZuperDAC; A PC/Headphone DAC about the size of a pinkie for $70 that supports DSD256 (it uses a tiny ES9018K2M DAC chip).

ESS Tech is the Lockheed Martin of the Audio industry :laughing:

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Bumping up this thread.

Is there any update about a plan from dCS to support DSD256?

I have got more than a handful of those spectacular HDTT transfers in the past, which I am not not able to play natively anymore with the newly acquired Rossini (of course I can if I downsample them with Roon and they still sound very good ;-)).

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I’m ‘in the same boat’…

Hopefully, dCS are considering this request, especially a it’s now been made by several dCS owners…:crossed_fingers:

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This is one area where dCS is lagging the market. All of its major competitors: MSB, Playback Designs, Esoteric, Chord, etc., offer 4-8x DSD at this time.

Hopefully we will see it soon…

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As do a variety of Chinese DACs due to the inclusion of up to DSD1024 in off-the-shelf chipsets.

To be clear, I doubt we are missing anything sonically, but eventually customers will be hesitant to audition dCS because of the specs.

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I can‘t hear the difference between 128/ 256. I would rather love to see a modern Mosaic GUI :slight_smile:

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At this time there are very few, ~100 recordings or less, recorded natively in DSD1024. However, DSD256 is a different story. I think I would be satisfied w just that for now : ) Right now I am down sampling everything to 128
: (

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