Do you feel that your DSD recordings lose any of the qualities that you like when they're exported to PCM (WAV, etc.)?
Bumping an old thread.
Does anyone want to comment on this?
I'm experiencing the other way around, as sometimes I "upsample" to DSD in audirvana+ to my mytek DSD DAC, as with most things in audio, when listening sighted, I feel I hear a difference. But I don't trust myself....
There is a real possibility that you are presenting your DAC with a data stream it processes more accurately than others. Not all DACs do equally well with everything that is thrown their way. In other words, your Mytek may do a better job converting a DSD stream than it does PCM, or it may just sound "different" which you perceive as "better".
There are all kinds of things written about how upsampling PCM to higher rates/depths may or may not have benefits. I haven't ever heard of someone saying that converting PCM to DSD giving an audible benefit, but it may be upsampling a lower-rate PCM to a higher one first before the DSD conversion.
As far as recording directly to DSD, I think it doesn't make much sense unless you (a) are not going to edit or process the files at all (which would cause them to be converted to PCM anyway), and (b) send them straight to a DAC that natively decodes DSD.