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Author Topic: DSD Myth  (Read 16194 times)

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Offline aaronji

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #15 on: July 27, 2015, 10:34:53 AM »
...not only that, but the choice of source material for the study.  Frankly, I think they usually choose the wrong material for these studies.  What they do is pick the best sounding recordings and see if they sound different or better.  That's fine, but they also need to be sampling marginal sounding recordings with lots of artifacts and/or noises happening in the background to see how well all of the 'crap' is translated.  That's what I'm more interested in anyway since it's the 'crap' that makes a live recording sound realistic.

If it is a marginal sounding recording, with lots of artifacts and noises, it seems to me that it wouldn't matter much how you encode it, assuming any sort of decent convertor.  Wouldn't any artifacts introduced by the conversion be masked by the crap?

Offline voltronic

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #16 on: July 27, 2015, 10:57:14 AM »
I don't have time this morning to sort through, but the figure posted indicates that the process they used sent the audio files through Pyramix.  The original article you posted in this thread suggests that's the technical equivalent of contaminating the DSD sample.

Pyramix both records and plays back DSD natively, which is probably why they chose it for this study.  Now, if they had done some significant editing or conversion post-tracking, you'd have a good point.  I don't see that mentioned one way or the other.

What I'm more curious about is this statement below.  Google really stumbled on this one, and maybe DSatz would be kind enough to provide a real translation.  I can get the gist from the graphic, that for each microphone feed they recorded 3 channels of DSD and 4 channels of PCM.  I cannot understand why, or what they're getting at with the 4 channels each of 44.1/24.  I hope this doesn't mean they took everything and converted it to 44.1/24.

Quote
Für das Bitmapping wurden aufzeichnungsseitig pro DSD-Kanal 3, pro PCM(176,4kHz/ 24Bit)-Kanal 4 Kanäle mit 44,1kHz/24Bit-Format benötigt. Daraus ergab sich für das Pyramix-System eine Gesamtspurenzahl von 38 Kanälen (die „freie“ Spur des DSD-A/D-Center-Konverters musste „leer“ mitlaufen).

Google says:
Quote
For Bitmapping were recording each per DSD channel 3 per PCM (176,4kHz / 24Bit) channel requires 4 channels with 44.1 kHz / 24-bit format. This resulted in the Pyramix system a total track number of 38 channels (the "free" track of the DSD A / D converter Center had to "empty" run along).
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Offline voltronic

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #17 on: July 27, 2015, 11:01:50 AM »
But Merging themselves claim that DSD results in an "enormous jump in quality" over PCM up to 192kHz.  If their own DAW degraded that quality back to no better than 176kHz PCM, why would they claim that?

http://www.merging.com/products/pyramix/dsd-dxd

Probably because they have something to sell . . .

Wow, that does seem rather disingenuous on their part.  Of course, if you just recording DSD natively and do nothing to it, it seems the original quality would be preserved, at least according to the articles I linked.
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #18 on: July 27, 2015, 11:49:07 AM »
Just like "beauty", "crap" is in in the ear of the beholder.

The people making comments in this thread that seem to be hearing a quality improvement are recording directly from the air through our analog gear and onto DSD.
^^
Irregardless of debates over proper testing methodologies, DBT's, willing-self-deception and all that, the above is a stronger argument in favor of the implementation of DSD on a particular recorder sounding better than PCM on the same recorder, rather than the superiority of the format itself.
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Offline voltronic

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #19 on: July 27, 2015, 12:08:11 PM »
Just like "beauty", "crap" is in in the ear of the beholder.

The people making comments in this thread that seem to be hearing a quality improvement are recording directly from the air through our analog gear and onto DSD.
^^
Irregardless of debates over proper testing methodologies, DBT's, willing-self-deception and all that, the above is a stronger argument in favor of the implementation of DSD on a particular recorder sounding better than PCM on the same recorder, rather than the superiority of the format itself.

By that are you implying a manufacturer might, for example, spend more time making sure the feature that gets top billing on their marketing is very well-implemented, and be less concerned about the other things?  How shocking!   :P

That seems to go along with the article in my OP that mentions converters that may do well at higher sample rates but perform much worse at lower rates.
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #20 on: July 27, 2015, 12:43:40 PM »
^^^
That.

My implication was only this- given a sample size of one machine, there is no way of differentiating between the particulars of the implementation of the various formats within that machine and those between the formats themselves. 

I'm with Jon with regards to the most likely design & implementation path taken by the manufacturer.
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Offline DSatz

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #21 on: July 27, 2015, 09:11:17 PM »
voltronic, I think you're probably quoting from the section on the design of the experiment. If so, then the relevant paragraph is probably this one (the posted German text is not entirely identical to the text that I was working from):

Quote
To avoid any influence of a mixer on the sound quality, the stereo music examples were recorded with two microphones and the surround examples with five. All the microphones had extended frequency response to 40 or 50 kHz (Schoeps MK 2S, MK 4 and MK 41 capsules with CMC 6-- xt amplifiers, and Sennheiser MKH 800); one microphone was simply assigned to each playback loudspeaker. The microphones were connected to microphone preamplifiers (Lake People F/35 II) which raised the signals to line level, then these signals were sent to the control room via 50-meter low-capacitance cables (Klotz M1 series). At that point the five analog signals were split via “Y” adapters and converted to digital, with one set of three two-channel dCS 904 units used for DSD and another such set used for 176.4 kHz, 24-bit PCM. The resulting digital signals were then stored on a “Pyramix Virtual Studio System” (Merging Technologies) as “non-audio” files by using the “data bitmapping” system of the converters to generate 24-bit, 44.1 kHz files (i.e. two channels of DSD were stored as six channels on the workstation).

--best regards
« Last Edit: July 27, 2015, 09:13:41 PM by DSatz »
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Offline voltronic

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #22 on: July 27, 2015, 09:44:41 PM »
voltronic, I think you're probably quoting from the section on the design of the experiment. If so, then the relevant paragraph is probably this one (the posted German text is not entirely identical to the text that I was working from):

Quote
To avoid any influence of a mixer on the sound quality, the stereo music examples were recorded with two microphones and the surround examples with five. All the microphones had extended frequency response to 40 or 50 kHz (Schoeps MK 2S, MK 4 and MK 41 capsules with CMC 6-- xt amplifiers, and Sennheiser MKH 800); one microphone was simply assigned to each playback loudspeaker. The microphones were connected to microphone preamplifiers (Lake People F/35 II) which raised the signals to line level, then these signals were sent to the control room via 50-meter low-capacitance cables (Klotz M1 series). At that point the five analog signals were split via “Y” adapters and converted to digital, with one set of three two-channel dCS 904 units used for DSD and another such set used for 176.4 kHz, 24-bit PCM. The resulting digital signals were then stored on a “Pyramix Virtual Studio System” (Merging Technologies) as “non-audio” files by using the “data bitmapping” system of the converters to generate 24-bit, 44.1 kHz files (i.e. two channels of DSD were stored as six channels on the workstation).

--best regards

Many thanks for that, DSatz.  It's the last sentence that I'm most curious about.  How does this "non-audio data bit mapping" work in Pyramix?  This is the first I've heard of such a feature.  My concern here is how the original data stream is reconstructed, be it the high-rate PCM or DSD used in this study.
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Offline DSatz

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #23 on: August 28, 2015, 12:46:46 PM »
Sorry, I haven't had time to go back and re-read (and re-absorb) the original report. If I recall correctly--and perhaps I don't--the computer-based A/B switching apparatus didn't have a channel suitable for DSD input, so some means of multiplexing the bitstream was devised, with the signals then being reassembled on the other side. I'm really sorry since I know that raises as many questions as it settles, plus as I said, I should re-read the thing and not go by memory. But I am very pressed for time these days so realistically, I probably won't get to it any time soon.

FWIW when I did the translation, I was emailing back and forth with the two authors of the study a fair amount, and nothing caused me to doubt the integrity of their experiment or their interpretation of the results. I learned some useful stuff from them on the interpretation of experimental data, too. Their article was on its way to being published in the Journal of the AES when unfortunately, a technicality caused it to be removed from consideration: Since this was essentially a master's thesis, it was required to be published in Germany, but the JAES requires that their articles be previously unpublished. (Shaka, when the walls fell.)

--Just this morning I got a mass mailing from Benchmark with a link to this blog article in it:  http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/news/41262017-audio-myth-dsd-provides-a-direct-stream-from-a-d-to-d-a. On a quick first read, I think that it's accurate; occasionally I find what looks like commercial bias in this author's postings, but what he's saying here seems apt. What he doesn't say is that the expiration of certain key patents from the early days of the CD format, and the ease with which people could "rip" tracks from CDs, were significant motivating factors; the attempted (and not very successful) introduction of DSD was the behavior of a company trying to preserve its revenue stream by means of planned obsolescence--whether or not that was in the interest of the public or the rest of the recording business.

--best regards
« Last Edit: August 29, 2015, 11:00:42 AM by DSatz »
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Offline voltronic

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #24 on: August 28, 2015, 05:03:06 PM »
^ ^ Thanks for that Benchmark article, it's a much more thorough examination them others I've seen.  While he certainly is opinionated, here it does seem to be simple facts bring presented.  I've never seen these sort of conclusions challenged by Sony or other DSD proponents.
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Offline Chilly Brioschi

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #25 on: August 29, 2015, 04:16:30 PM »
^ ^ Thanks for that Benchmark article, it's a much more thorough examination them others I've seen.  While he certainly is opinionated, here it does seem to be simple facts bring presented.  I've never seen these sort of conclusions challenged by Sony or other DSD proponents.

Straight to the point and not excessively technical, I liked the Benchmark article as well.

In short, current DSD standards are equivalent to 96kHz/20bit PCM
Quite a revelation!
« Last Edit: August 29, 2015, 04:22:03 PM by Tango'd Up »
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Offline SBW

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #26 on: September 30, 2015, 09:31:37 PM »
Sooo, I have a question about this DSD vs PCM stuff for ARCHIVING.  That means no mixing, equalization or touching the the raw bits after they hit the hard drive.  Playback is just goes back out the DSD or PCM D/A converter in whatever format it was recorded. 

Which of these is more accurate for reproducing the exact analog signal that went into the A/D converter? 
 

Offline SBW

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #27 on: October 01, 2015, 03:20:34 AM »
Quote
The most accurate possible output would be the direct decimator output from an ADC with that feature, which will be a few MHz at a few bits per sample.  But I don't know that too many recorders offer that feature.

Ahhh ok so, when you mean "at a few bits per sample", is that what the "fs" was in the diagrams on that Grimm Audio article that started this thread?

Offline aaronji

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #28 on: October 01, 2015, 06:00:51 AM »
^ Fs is usually sampling frequency.  As used in this article, if I am not mistaken, it is how many multiples of 44.1 kHz (CD rate). 

Quote from: Grimm Article
By the way, the 2.8 Mhz sample rate is 64 times the CD sample rate of 44.1 kHz, which is written as ‘64 fs’.

Offline SBW

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Re: DSD Myth
« Reply #29 on: October 01, 2015, 08:14:28 AM »
Ooops, guess I should have read that article more closely  :facepalm:

 

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