DP could be the first to DSD multitrack

[Timeline]

Headphones only. (DT880-pro) I agree its non technical. I can have a day where I can't hear clearly because of a cold or something but when I go back in a few days and listen I notice a clearer top and less dark result from DSD128. Wish I could try higher formats but the boxes are not there yet with exception to Sonic solutions. It seems though that DSD128 works fine for this.

[Timeline]

Again, sounds better to me.

[EMRR]

I'd be interested to see comparative phase, frequency, and noise floor plots.

[mikehalloran]

I first heard multitrack DSD perhaps 15 years ago or whenever that Sony machine first came out. It was impressive in the studio. As nice as the resulting SACD was, the CD sounded no better than any other.

Too many red herrings in this debate. I was one of those who preferred to master at 15ips -- the kick and bass sounded better. Yes, true stereo depth of field was a little nicer at 30 (I did a lot of true stereo) but it was going to vinyl which has 27dB separation on the finest playback and 22dB on typical systems.

I have an SACD disk changer. A lot of Sony DVD changers have this functionality built in and I found one used on CraigsList for $75. A few disks step up to the plate but most don't sound and better than a well mastered CD. I have a Beethoven cycle that is particularly nice DSD/SACD.
http://www.amazon.com/Symphonies-Nos-1- ... CD+Bernard
When I bought this, I got the 366K MP3 files "free" with my Amazon order. They sound no better than any other.

The real issue: How do you get this perceived increase in fidelity to the consumer? Solve that and I'll be interested in DSD. Till then... No, I don't believe there will be a "then".

[Timeline]

Are you speaking of the Sony 3324 machines? 16 bit

[mikehalloran]

Are you speaking of the Sony 3324 machines? 16 bit

It was presented as 1 bit multitrack DSD for making SACD. I don't recall the model nor do I know if it ever went to market. I'm pretty sure that it was a prototype.

[Shooshie]

There are arguments to be made about DSD's quality.

Robert, you seem like someone I could ask the following question, which is not related to anything we've discussed so far. Do you think it's accurate to call a one-bit PCM a "digital" process? If my understanding of one bit pulse modulation is correct, we're talking about a more-or-less analog cluster of pulses, approximating a representation of the density of air molecules passing a microphone's diaphragm. Compared to 16, 24, or 32 bit processing, this is a whole different way of representing sound, yet they are still running on digital machines. Different, in the sense that DSD is a stream of information entirely on the time-axis, with zero usable information on the amplitude or value axis. It actually LOOKS more like analog, but a system must be created that gates voltage changes based on the mathematical relationship of the spacing of pulses over the lattice of the sampled clock. It's Frequency Modulation, isn't it?

When processing the digital audio with which we are all familiar, the number of possible values (bit depth) of each sample determine the subtlety of the analog sound that results from it. The stream is compounding value/time. When processing DSD, all samples have the same value – 1 bit. No other value is possible. It's a flat system, so the only variable is the timing between them, which is measured with a digital clock. Assuming the clocks of the recording, mixing, mastering, and playback machines are corrected for jitter and noise, the resulting analog output should be very precise, comparable to 24 bit/96K digital audio, but not directly translatable on a 1-to-1 basis. Each is an approximation of the other, because of the complete and utter difference of their respective foundations. But we call the PCM of compact discs "digital" technology, even though it deals with hexadecimal codes over 8-bit bytes, linked into 16, 24 or 32 bit words. DSD has no words. No values other than binary on/off.

In DSD applications, everything must be built from the ground up. Filters, AD/DA convertors, multi-core processing, signal transmission within the operating system... virtually everything must be built on a new foundation, where all processes are time-based-only, and not value/time as we currently use. And while the values are all the same, which is to say, binary, the process becomes one of time, error correction for jitter, over the constant oscillations of the various cores of a CPU. I guess that still makes it digital, even though it looks a lot like analog.

It's like the difference between AM and FM radio, except that it is stored with clock information rather than pulled out of the air in real time. The more i think of it, the more I see a universe of approximations in the disparity of overlaying such differing systems one atop another. And yet I guess it's all digital, simply because it is recorded and played back on digital computers. It's really a binary function, such that translation into the digital domain and back is really an extra set of steps and approximations. Geez!

Mind benders. Claude Shannon would love it.

Shoosh

[Timeline]

Are you speaking of the Sony 3324 machines? 16 bit

It was presented as 1 bit multitrack DSD for making SACD. I don't recall the model nor do I know if it ever went to market. I'm pretty sure that it was a prototype.

Oh yea Mike. Early 1 bit stuff.
Likely DSD64.

[Shooshie]

The part I bolded I disagree with. If you can not sense it, it's irrelevant. There's no point needlessly using storage for data that can't be perceived.

No doubt, that was the deciding argument among engineers at Philips when they were inventing the Compact Disc and chose 16/44.1K. Yet we know there is a lot of subtlety lost between analog and that format of digital data, some of which we can approximate digitally, and some of which we can't. There's no debating whether 24/48K sounds better. It simply does, and yet it's hard to say why, because the differences are happening above our threshold of "hearing," and yet they definitely affect our hearing. I guess that's where resampling comes in: process the higher frequencies, then resample the result in the audible domain and print that in 16/44.1K. By way of extension, it makes sense that we should process as high a sample rate as is computationally possible.

So, when we get to DSD, we're looking at similar discrepancies, except that these all happen on the time-axis, as a result of the aliasing created by mapping one grid (the recorded pulse modulations) upon another (the clock). It similarly stands to reason that we should set the clock as high as physically possible, and record that, then downsample it to whatever the prevailing rate is. But since we are at the early stages of it, why make the same mistake they made for the Compact Disc? Why not go ahead and set a standard for hardware that's 3 or 4 times higher resolution than we currently think is necessary?

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

But since we are at the early stages of it...

The early stages of what? This is easily the third attempt to make DSD the next big thing. That Beethoven cycle I referenced was released in 2006.

Besides SACD which hit its peak 7 or 8 years ago, where's the delivery medium to get these perceived advantages to the consumer? Pono perhaps? Is the consumer interested! Hasn't happened yet.

I'm reminded of something that Rick Turner told me many years ago. "The CD took mediocrity and made it sound pretty good." I'm afraid he's right and that "pretty good" is going to prove "good enough" in the long run.

Again, solve that and I'll pay attention. Till then, I'll pass.

[Shooshie]

More from Wikipedia:

DSD vs. PCM:

There are fundamental distortion mechanisms present in the conventional implementation of DSD.[36] These distortion mechanisms can be alleviated to some degree by using digital converters with a multibit design. Historically, state-of-the-art ADCs were based around sigma-delta modulation designs. Oversampling converters are frequently used in linear PCM formats, where the ADC output is subject to bandlimiting and dithering.[37] Many modern converters use oversampling and a multibit design. It has been suggested that bitstream digital audio techniques are theoretically inferior to multibit (PCM) approaches: J. Robert Stuart notes, "1-bit coding would be a totally unsuitable choice for a series of recordings that set out to identify the high-frequency content of musical instruments, despite claims for its apparent wide bandwidth. If it is unsuitable for recording analysis then we should also be wary of using it for the highest quality work."

A double-blind subjective test between high resolution linear PCM (DVD-Audio) and DSD did not reveal a statistically significant difference. Listeners involved in this test noted their great difficulty in hearing any difference between the two formats.

Future of DSD:

DSD brings new challenges if immediate manipulation of the recorded data is desired. PCM is far easier to manipulate and is more easily built into existing applications such as the advent of very-high-resolution PCM media and tools, such as DXD. DSD however is used as a master archive format in the studio market and seen as a possible low noise replacement for analog tapes. As a little quality is lost when converting from DSD to PCM, and as PCM cannot be converted back into true DSD, the debate continues as to whether the ultimate quality digital audio can be found by using DSD players or recording directly into a high quality PCM format in the first place.

Not that Wikipedia is the final arbiter of any discussion, this merely points out that the jury is not agreed on any aspect of this ongoing debate, which is as old as the Compact Disc, or older. Similar video signal streams on optical discs of the 1970s were not successful in the long term.

What's fascinating to ME about the debate is merely that nothing is set in stone; not even the audio format we have all come to accept as "digital audio." It could disappear completely if a competing DSD technology could suitably better it in sound production while not losing the immediate mixability of the current PCM technology. From what I've gathered so far, we're a long, long way from that happening, but some people are working very hard on it. Who knows what they might achieve?

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

But since we are at the early stages of it...

The early stages of what? This is easily the third attempt to make DSD the next big thing.

Besides SACD which hit its peak 7 or 8 years ago, where's the delivery medium to get these perceived advantages to the consumer? Pono perhaps? Is the consumer interested! Hasn't happened yet.

I'm reminded of something that Rick Turner told me many years ago. "The CD took mediocrity and made it sound pretty good." I'm afraid he's right and that "pretty good" is going to prove "good enough" in the long run.

Again, solve that and I'll pay attention. Till then, I'll pass.

Agreed, yet I'd prefer to pay attention now, while there is some chance of altering the course of an emerging technology. I call it emerging, because even though it's been tried before and failed, it hasn't been tried with computers as powerful as today's. Maybe it will take tomorrow's computer to finally handle the necessary computations to make it practical.

Seems to me that if they are shooting for making it equal to digital audio we can currently record (24/96K), they are shooting in the wrong direction. It has to utterly kick the ass of PCM/CD/DVD, or there is no reason to pursue it. They need to set their standards about 4 times as high as they are, if not 40 times higher. Yeah, yeah, unnecessary information exceeds the storage capacity, etc., and yet if there are any improvements to be made over CD or DVD, that's where those improvements lie.

Oh, and we haven't even seen any discussion of jitter. If Jitter affects PCM, where subtlety is measured in amplitude (sample value) over time, imagine the effects on DSD, where the whole bag is simply time.

Shoosh

[Timeline]

I just hope that a cool company like MOTU might get into improving the industry for us on a system like DP that we all love and MOTU profit from the format with IOs.

One other point in are favor my be that there will be more money made on music using a high bandwidth format by releasing it on BlueRay in DSD. Pono my also join in in time with an add on DSD format for consumer listening.

There are several European record companies releasing wide bandwidth product and they include DSD & DXD. If you look at the prices they get for the higher quality music one might say it could revitalize the music industry income, especially considering the difficulty to store these fils and share. Were limited currently to 10k on mail apps which precludes anything but mp3 currently and similar compression formats. So... it could help push actual sales of discs. Just sayin...

[Shooshie]

I just hope that a cool company like MOTU might get into improving the industry for us on a system like DP that we all love and MOTU profit from the format with IOs.

Unlikely. MOTU is a small company with little R&D budget. Whoever tackles this has got to have either a large budget for research with no immediate rewards in sight, or else a lot of time (and money) to devote to a hobby that one day might prove to overthrow the dominant technology in the audio field, or both. None of these sound like MOTU. When someone comes up with a new dominant technology, that's when we'll see MOTU produce a reasonably-priced line of hardware with modest to advanced features for professional audio engineers, not for acoustic scientists. They just aren't positioned to be the leaders in this field.

Shoosh

[Timeline]

I just hope that a cool company like MOTU might get into improving the industry for us on a system like DP that we all love and MOTU profit from the format with IOs.

Unlikely. MOTU is a small company with little R&D budget. Whoever tackles this has got to have either a large budget for research with no immediate rewards in sight, or else a lot of time (and money) to devote to a hobby that one day might prove to overthrow the dominant technology in the audio field, or both. None of these sound like MOTU. When someone comes up with a new dominant technology, that's when we'll see MOTU produce a reasonably-priced line of hardware with modest to advanced features for professional audio engineers, not for acoustic scientists. They just aren't positioned to be the leaders in this field.

Shoosh

Well S, I see it differently. I see no reason at all to overthrow anything but just add the format like the workstation company I posted earlier who implement VST files to work. DP handles various formats now and if they added DSD with a block of code that signifies a compatible IO then we could get there. Glass half full.