Wadax vs Vivaldi

dCS Products
61

I have spent quite a lot of time on this issue, and while I do not consider myself an expert, and of course welcome the insights of others, I would like to respond to this post by @Urbanluthier:

DSD256:
(a) There is now, within my musical taste, a substantial number of titles recorded natively in DSD256;
(b) These recordings are mostly made using the Pyramix Workstation, a product of Merging Technologies;
(c) Merging Technologies also developed the DXD format (352.8kHz / 24bit);
(d) The DXD format was created specifically to be able to convert DSD256 to DXD for edting. This is because, as is well-known, the DSD format consists only of 0s and 1s to designate a decrease or increase, respectively, of signal amplitude;
(e) Once the DSD256 file, or a portion of the file, is edited in DXD, the file can be saved back to DSD256;
(f) It is my understanding that the DSD256-to-DXD-to-DSD256 conversion is lossless (minus, of course, what was edited by the sound engineer);
(g) Many of the DSD256 albums that are edited in DXD are not available for download in DXD, but only in lower resolutions, e.g., PCM 192kHz, reflecting a Decrease in resolution relative to DSD256 (and also, relative to DXD)

It is true that NativeDSD upsamples some original DSD128 recordings to DSD256, DSD512, and (very rarely) DSD1024. However, this is clearly marked and one can simply choose, as I and others do, to purchase the original DSD128 format. As you rightly state, it is better to upsample within the dCS platform, if one chooses to do so.

No. Because this would not enable native DSD256 playback, which is the desired/request feature of some members of the community.

Again, respectully no. This is because the DSD256 recording is often not made available in DXD format. If every DSD256 release were offered in DXD, and, as is believed, that conversion process is lossless, then one could rightly question the value of having DSD256 playback.

First, if I have any of the above factually incorrect, of course please advise. I am not in the recording/mixing profession.

Second, I personally would value a simple statement from dCS clarifying the matter, i.e., current generation hardware cannot be easily upgraded to play DSD256. This would save the hassle of this on-going debate, and the (seemingly neverending) wait on this feature request. It would be better if we simply knew this was not coming. (@James)

My best,
R

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62

It seems as though this thread has evolved quite far from my original question:

Has anyone heard the Wadax Reference DAC vs Vivaldi and if so, what were your impressions?

Perhaps it’s time to start a new one focusing on technical concerns?

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63

No unfortunately it is not lossless.

This was discussed before in this thread → Request for DSD256 playback - #48 by Anupc

And to quote again folks who write software/firmware for the conversion;

Unlike conversions within the PCM format ( WAV to FLAC, etc ), conversions from DSD to PCM - or the other way round - cannot be done losslessly. This is a mathematical fact, even though some otherwise well-informed individuals can be heard to assert otherwise.

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In my mind it wasn’t definitively answered.

I will ask Merging Technologies, since they make both the recording platform and the conversion software, and report back.

Regardless, a tremendous amount of information would need to be lost to bring DSD256, or DXD, down to 192kHz, and as such, I believe the key points stand.

65

Looking forward to it. I just hope the answer doesn’t come from some marketing hack :laughing:

I’m not sure I follow exactly; do you mean for minute few pure DSD256 albums that aren’t available in DXD? Seriously, how many of those are there on NativeDSD? 5? 10?

66

A quick survey of https://www.nativedsd.com shows that all of the titles on the home page (at time of viewing) are available in DXD and DSD. And many of them were recorded at 96k, 176k or 192k PCM and up sampled to DXD and transcoded to DSD.

For PCM titles recorded at a lower rate, one is much better off buying these in their native format and letting dCS do the up sampling (these tend to be from Alpha classics, Pentatone et al. These can be purchased for much less elsewhere). And as @Anup notes, will likely sound better when dCS does the upsampling to either DXD or DSD 128 rather than the software encoded upsampling performed by NativeDSD.

For true DSD recordings, one has to search for Pure DSD. Only a small portion of their catalogue is what they call Pure DSD (i.e. no post processing in PCM).

DXD to DSD is not a lossless conversion as noted by @Anupc.

NativeDSD was founded by Channel Classics’ Jared Sacks who champions DSD and who has produced a very fine catalogue of recordings (most are recorded in DSD 64 (while new ones show up as recorded in DSD 128 and 256). Editing (according to Sacks) is done in DXD. I have many of these recordings in both DSD and DXD - Rachel Podger and Pieter Wispelwey for example are two fine artists who have recorded with CC.

The likely reason why we see more and more PCM recordings showing up on NativeDSD, is that Channel classics is now owned by Outhere music. Perhaps there is a partnership? They own some terrific record labels including Linn and Alpha. I see them as the alliterative to the big mega lables like Warner, Sony & Universal (pun on the name outhere? IMHO some of the finest new classical music comes from artists who record with Outhere.

Again aside from the handful of Pure True DSD titles, enjoying DSD recordings involves transcoding. The Question comes down to where the transcoding takes place (either in software by the record label at NaitiveDSD or in our own dCS hardware.

I know this is hard to get one’s head around but I hope it helps

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67

Right now there are 204 on NativeDSD, and many are exceptional, and it remains a sore point for many that one of the companies that refers to itself as “best in class,” is apparently unable to support the format on products as expensive, and otherwise as exceptional, as the V/R/B.

This is now a standard feature on virtually every DAC in the market.

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The purpose of my prior response concerns recordings originally at DSD256.

I don’t agree. Depending on your taste, it may be better to play them in the native format, without further upsampling. For example, play DSD64 at DSD64.

There are a little more than 200 titles at this time and many of these recordings are exceptional. IMHO, an expensive, high end DAC should be capable of playing them, like every other high end DAC in the market.

Even if there are some losses in this conversion, which still needs confirmation, the source recording at DSD256 is so rich, 11.2 million times per second, that the end recording from any conversion for editing could be superior to a high res PCM recording, e.g. 192 kHz/24

It doesn’t look like OH records natively in DSD, so again, not my focus here.

69

Sorry again I think you are missing so much about the subtitles of what’s going at Native DSD. ** As you note, If you are looking at pure DSD only recordings you are looking at 204 recordings!** some are nice and I own a few. But it is a very very small catalogue. Everything else sold as DSD on NativeDSD has been transcoded from a PCM master

You can play these PCM sources recordings in their native format if you wish but my point is that if you are buying a PCM recording from Native DSD. Eg something like this labeled as Edited Master Source you can often purchase it elsewhere for much much less. It has been converted to DSD by Native DSD just as most of their DSD recored material is transcoded back to DSD from DXD before release. The rare exception is the odd DXD source that shows up on NativeDSD that isn’t commercially available elsewhere.

NativeDSD tries to be transparent, and I appreciate that but there is sill a lot of marketing hype, their name is based on 204 recordings of a total of ~3300 in their catalogue.

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70

I think you are thinking about this in the wrong way @keiserrg. PCM and DSD are completely different ways of approximating analog waveforms. Comparing their bitrates is largely irrelevant because of the differences in the way they do what they do. DSD is not just 1/2.2884 PCM, a huge amount of the information captured in DSD encoding is noise shaped into ultrasonic noise which needs to be filtered out.

Lossless is a defined term in information theory for which there is a simple test: if something is lossless it can be reversed. The fact is that there is no way to convert losslessly from PCM to DSD or vice versa. The best implemented conversions are very good indeed, possibly “audibly transparent”, but not lossless.

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I appreciate you trying to “explain” this to me, but again, this is wrong.

The two ways you get a “native DSD” file are (a) recording live in DSD, for example Eudora Records, via Pyramix, or (b) going back to the analog tape and re-recording in DSD.

Below is how HDTT explains the latter.

R

HDTT

"We will be offering many of our popular titles and new releases available in Quad DSD (DSD256) With a resolution up to 256 times better than CD, your ears will immediately realize the full potential of your playback system. DSD256 is the highest audio resolution format available today.

“Note: DSD has limited editing capabilities. To keep it pure DSD with no PCM used, I had to allow some blemishes to remain from the original tape source that would be normally edited out in a PCM release.
Remastered using the Merging Pyramix Workstation.”

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Yes this is correct but my statement earlier is also correct. Apart from the 204 Pure DSD tagged albums in the NativeDSD catalogue, most everything else they sell has come from a PCM master regardless of whether the original microphone Analogue to Digital conversion was done in DSD. Native DSD creates derivatives transcoded from PCM DXD or even lower rates to DSD. I’m simply trying to highlight what NativeDSD has stated on their website.

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Seems more like naïveDSD :wink:

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Understood and all good.

My point by delineating the two pathways to DSD was to highlight that when both are included, the total number or albums in DSD256 greatly exceeds the 200 “Pure” titles on NativeDSD.

More broadly, the studios issuing these releases produce great recordings, which dCS customers should have the right to enjoy, in any HD format they wish.

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75

Is it possible to take this extended discussion of DSD to new a new topic thread?

I would like to see responses to the original posted question, but feel anyone looking at the last 25 posts would not see any connection to the initial topic.

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76

I will try to bring this thread back on track by pointing out that the WADAX Reference DAC is also limited to DSD/256. :wink:

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77

And I will also help @struts001 by adding that Wadax wisely supports this format, and not DSD512 or DSD1024, because, unlike DSD256, there is essentially zero content recorded in these higher DSD resolutions.

; )

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It’s obvious that there is both passion and interest in discussing DSD and I don’t wish to limit it. I would just ask, out of courtesy that a new topic/thread be initiated to converse on it. That way this one could still focus on its original intent.

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79

Afaik no WADAX products were shown at either of the weekend’s two nearest shows to me (the Sweetspot show in Gothenburg and the UK hi-fi show at Ascot). I was really hoping that someone on the forum would get along to the US Studio launch event at Goodwin’s last week but alas not even that seems to have been the case. :frowning:

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I guess thats exactly the crux of the debate; I think it’s a sore point for a few, not many. dCS are really the only ones in a position to know for sure if it’s some or many.

And WADAX’s “dirty little secret” of how they support DSD256? Burr Brown DAC chips - £160,000 worth of electronics wrapped around TI BB chips :rofl:

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