Topic: Korg Mr-1 vs Sony PCM D-50

[craig_c]

I found an MR-1 at a price I couldn't pass up, but I'm wondering if I should look for a PCM D-50 and unload the MR-1. I was hoping to record industrial sound and shift the pitch/tempo extremely downward, like make a 10 sec. sample be 30 secs, and approx. 3 octaves lower. I thought doing this in DSD would provide the least resample artifacts. Turns out I can't do this edit in DSD, I have to covert to PCM format and edit in my DAW.
SO, the question is this: will the PCM file from the Korg be of a higher quality than if I had recorded using a PCM recorder such, as the D-50, (assuming same sampling rates) and result in fewer artifacts?

Thanks for any advice.

Craig

[headroom]

DSD 1 bit is with a lot of noise shaping. And the PCM 50 D has excellent Amps Limiter and runs cool and long with battery. Great sound I think only Metric Halo ULN stuff is better

[craig_c]

"DSD 1 bit is with a lot of noise shaping."
Sorry, but this newbie doesn't know what "noise shaping" is. PCM doesn't use noise shaping? I read the Wikipedia entry on "noise shaping" and I gather that it is a method to increase the signal to noise ratio. I thought that DSD samples so fast that it is a more accurate representation of the sound, minimizing quantization errors better than PCM.
Are you saying that a good quality PCM recorder has better signal accuracy?

Craig

[headroom]

1 bit DSD Recording is very very agressive and i d not know your a newbie...
DSD is 2.8 MHZ and PCM is 44.1 /48 /96/192 kHz converting to lower samplerate will allways degrade the sound because of uneven Numbers. 88.2 to 44.1 Khz is not a problem because is exactly  1/2 rate.
I have 2 PCM 50 and the only drawback is the lack of Phantom Power 48 Volt for external mics.
And the 50 have the possiblity to play ist  slower or  speedup without pitch shifting

[craig_c]

No reason you could know I'm new at this. Digital imaging I understand, but I'm learning audio.
Could you expand on what you mean that DSD is aggressive?
Also, I want to radically shift the pitch. For instance, I want to record record a car engine and shift the pitch/tempo way slower. If I convert the DSD file to a 192 PCM and shift the sound downward in my DAW, will I get a better result than if I had recorded at 96KHz in PCM and then resample the file -- less artifacts?

[headroom]

No reason you could know I'm new at this. Digital imaging I understand, but I'm learning audio.
Could you expand on what you mean that DSD is aggressive?

To much very complicated technial stuff to explain.

Also, I want to radically shift the pitch. For instance, I want to record record a car engine and shift the pitch/tempo way slower. If I convert the DSD file to a 192 PCM and shift the sound downward in my DAW, will I get a better result than if I had recorded at 96KHz in PCM and then resample the file -- less artifacts?

Dont think so for car sound and stay in 24 bit until ther end process...

[headroom]

DSD provides an extreme example that shows how SNR is not determined by bit depth alone:

DSD is a 1 bit system with a sample rate of 2.8224 MHz. When measured over its entire bandwidth (1.4112 MHz) its SNR is less than 6 dB. However, DSD achieves an excellent SNR (up to about 120 dB) when measured from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. DSD uses very aggressive noise shaping to move the quantization noise out of band and into high frequencies.

The in-band SNR limits of a digital system are determined by the following:

1) Bit depth (about 6 dB per bit)
2) Sample rate (about 3 dB for every doubling of the sampling frequency if noise-shaping is not used)
3) Noise Shaping (substantial improvement - especially at high sample rates)

Noise shaping is only effective when there is spectrum space available to "hide" the noise. The noise shaping that is often used on 44.1 kHz CDs moves much of the quantization noise the the band between 20 kHz and 22 kHz. Packing the noise into this 2 kHz band can substantially improve the perceived SNR as well as the measured 20 Hz to 20 kHz SNR. 96 kHz has a much wider band available for noise shaping - (20 kHz to 48 kHz). 96 kHz has a 26 kHz band available for noise shaping while 44.1 kHz has only 2 kHz available. DSD has 1391 kHz available for "hiding" quantization noise.

Noise shaping must be re-applied whenever a signal is modified (gain change, EQ, etc.). Cascaded noise shaping processes can be very damaging due to rapid build-up of out-of-band noise.

For this reason DSD in not a good format for use in recording and editing.

Noise shaping is rarely used at 96 kHz because most 96 kHz systems support 24-bit data. For this reason 96 kHz 24-bit systems have gained widespread acceptance in pro-audio applications. 96 kHz 24-bit audio can be edited easily without needing to apply potentially-damaging noise shaping.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=75887&mode=threaded&pid=665724

[craig_c]

Well, I'll have to dig in and study this. When you say that DSD is not good for recording, I'm confused that so many people in reviews seem to think that their DSD recordings sound much better than PCM recordings. Is this due to a sort of audio placebo effect — that since they bought this gear they are expecting it to sound better?

And what happens during editing to the displaced noise that is shifted to higher frequencies?

Also, thank you very much for your detailed reply.

Craig

[headroom]

All digital systems have a different sound even with the same processors but you need a trained ear and very high resolution chain to hear this.
For a hobbist its not necerlery to go into the Highend Stuff wich is very expensive. So what is your goal? Just strart recording sound make some expiriences, but do not go to deep into all this technical blabla. We are living in times of the digital proletariat. Example Poeple with a Pro camera think they are professional photographer but dont know ho to viewing like a Pro, wich is a long process.

Only a good recorder makes no a difference.
It`s the sum of everthing  its the Power Source the cables and the Mics there placement, the Micamp and the recording technique skills and a very well trained ear wich makes the difference. There are so many mastubators in  all forums wich not hear the difference from cold amp and a heated up amp. For maybe 2 Minutes the sound is bad going up and after 15 Minutes it is dropping down. The SONY PCM 50 not, it uses just very little power current aka no heat.

[Nick's Picks]

I have run an mr1 on and off again for the last few years.  I find it a very, very good sounding deck.  I would master in DSD and bring it straight to redbook via the software if I didn't need to do any tweaking (like adjusting levels or whatever).
the results spoke for themselves to my ears

[headroom]

What is to Author with SACD?  You send the tracks to Sony, who charge you a small fortune, and they do the pressing - you cannot now, or will ever be able to - create your own.
No Burners
No Drives that will play the DSD streams
No software players.

Why not stay all the time in HIREZ  96/24bit and play it it with DVD-A or over Firewire ? Downsampling DSD to Rebook will shure not sound equal like the Original DSD stream.

[Shadow_7]

I have the MR-1000.  I didn't really like the MR-1 version based on specs.  Power issue(odd battery), no preamps, 3.5mm input, and no onboard mics?  And not much different in price (at that time) from the MR-1000.  Plus I got a good deal on a used MR-1000.

DSD is nice, the book says a larger dynamic range than 24 bit.  Editing DSD is for the most part not an option, so you have to convert it to PCM anyway.  Although the most recent version of audiogate has some extra editing like ablities that can be applied to DSD / SACD outputs.  And a few editors are becoming DSD capable.  But for me I convert to 24 bit @ 96 kHz to edit. 

The difference to my ears is the transient detail.  There just appears to be more of it, even on relatively low sensitivity mics.  And even after conversion / downsampling.  Until I double my computing power (3yo system), 24@96 is just easier / quicker to do.  And something that you could pass off to someone else unedited and they can do something with it themselves.  But if you don't record in DSD and convert there's really not much difference between it and other options, outside of price.

[page]

1 bit DSD Recording is very very agressive and i d not know your a newbie...
DSD is 2.8 MHZ and PCM is 44.1 /48 /96/192 kHz converting to lower samplerate will allways degrade the sound because of uneven Numbers. 88.2 to 44.1 Khz is not a problem because is exactly  1/2 rate.

I think your committing the general fallacy of logic with PCM... It's true you are getting more samples per second, but your not sampling each frequency more often per second. Degradation is largely based on your sample rate converter routine much more so then what parent frequency you recorded at.

A better reason to choose between 88.2khz and 96khz would be what you're trying to record in the missing band (such as special nature recording situations and sound effects that will be slowed down later in post processing) or the final application (e.g. DVD Video which doesn't support 88.2).

[ghellquist]

... converting to lower samplerate will allways degrade the sound because of uneven Numbers. 88.2 to 44.1 Khz is not a problem because is exactly  1/2 rate.

They say a little knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge. In this case you are totally wrong today.

There is no advantage in sound quality in keeping any special ratios when converting. There is an old myth that even ratios ( 44.1 to 88.2 has the ratio 2 ) would sound better. This is only a myth today. It was partly right in older times when computers used to bee much slower than today.

It might be true that you could, possibly, save a little computer processing time when doing even ratios. I would not bet on it though, not having written any commercial quality sample rate converting software. I bet our friend headroom has never written any sample rate converting software either. Computer processing is plenty available today, so that is not an issue in any normal processing.

// gunnar

[ghellquist]

1 bit DSD Recording is very very agressive ... 

Again, a little knowledge may be very dangerous.

DSD recording is not aggressive. Not in the way a lion or a dog could be. And it does not aggressively modify any sound. It is simply a technique to catch and transfer sound samples. It has advantages and disadvantages, like any other technologies.

And like any other use in a technical application, it is generally not the theoretical limits that sets the quality borders but the practical application and most often the design tradeoffs in actual appliances.

I believe there is a common understanding among recording engineers that the differences between DSD and PCM are small. Not insignifacant in every case but still small. Especially if you compare to the common consumer formats, say mp3.

// Gunnar