Redbook to DSD-128 - Something Special?

I have down loaded a few super hi rez songs and they sound great but not sure they justify the storage space as compared to 24/96. HD space is getting cheap so maybe it is worth it?

What has amazed me is the "on the fly" conversion of redbook tracks to DSD128 and how good they sound. It does not make sense to me but they do sound darn good. Maybe this is the best of both worlds? Storage at 16/44 and play at DSD128...

Billfort, among many others, has noticed the same thing. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has.

Please, this thread is not open to debate about whether hi-res files sound better, or whether DSD is better, or any such. It's one of those threads where if you've ACTUALLY tried it, you can state your experience, positive or negative. If you haven't actually tried it, you can't post your theories about what the outcome 'should' be.

This could sound different depending on the music program and computer's horse power. Personally I would shoot for the best playback of the original file using the lossless compression of your choice. Many use FLAC.
If your DAC has a better DSD than PCM section this could be a factor. Ideally both PCM and DSD should be optimized.

Thanks,
Ron-C

stoutblock said:

I have down loaded a few super hi rez songs and they sound great but not sure they justify the storage space as compared to 24/96. HD space is getting cheap so maybe it is worth it?

What has amazed me is the "on the fly" conversion of redbook tracks to DSD128 and how good they sound. It does not make sense to me but they do sound darn good. Maybe this is the best of both worlds? Storage at 16/44 and play at DSD128...

Click to expand...

Ahhhh Ha!

You see! Lots of people have been parroting what all the so called experts have been say about what you have discovered. They come with all their white papers trying to prove what you are doing sounds inferior....to much noise at such a high sample, they say.

A few of us like Lee Harvey..Billfort on this forum and a few others on other forums have been saying forget about the white paper....just do it and let your ears be the judge...and for me, every thing is double DSD.

But I must add....the better the Redbook, the better the DSD.

ron-c said:

This could sound different depending on the music program and computer's horse power. Personally I would shoot for the best playback of the original file using the lossless compression of your choice. Many use FLAC.
If your DAC has a better DSD than PCM section this could be a factor. Ideally both PCM and DSD should be optimized.

Thanks,
Ron-C

Click to expand...

The conversion is so good, all my CDs have been and still are being converted to DSD 128 and stored.

ron-c said:

If your DAC has a better DSD than PCM section this could be a factor. Ideally both PCM and DSD should be optimized.

Click to expand...

This - and at the more affordable price points or with the newer delta-sigma based DAC chips that require internal up-sampling anyway, 'optimized' for PCM might be best done outside the DAC and feeding it the easy stuff - high-rate DSD. I believe it's more effective to do the conversion on a sophisticated computer with tune-able filters than on the $10 chips and compromised software you'd find in most PCM DAC circuits.

In my experience, really good sounding DSD DACS and software doing DSD128 is way more affordable than top-flight PCM - and then there is how good the damn things sound playing DSD files!

And I really like the on-the-fly up-scaling method with tune-able software. Sure, the files are much smaller this way which may or may not matter to you but you keep an exact copy of the original and with the right software, get to choose, change and experiment with the filter settings on-the-fly too. Over the last year I've made system changes, used widely varying source material, upgraded computer hardware and software, even accommodated changing mood and tastes - all by varying filters and conversion of the same rips.

:scratch2:

Man, the jargon keeps getting more confusing.

Watching and trying to learn.

I really like what I'm hearing so far with HQPlayer and a mid level DSD DAC.

I've already got my eyes on upgrading to a PC with more processing power to take full advantage of everything that HQPlayer can do as I am quite limited with my little Mac Mini at the moment. Regardless, my old FLAC files converted to DSD128 on the fly sound quite a bit better than they do played conventionally. :yes:

Does the HQPlayer do the converting, or does your DAC do that?

Very interested, but I don't guess I quite understand. 23k flac files, would love to hear them at their best.

marantzfan said:

I really like what I'm hearing so far with HQPlayer and a mid level DSD DAC.

I've already got my eyes on upgrading to a PC with more processing power to take full advantage of everything that HQPlayer can do as I am quite limited with my little Mac Mini at the moment. Regardless, my old FLAC files converted to DSD128 on the fly sound quite a bit better than they do played conventionally. :yes:

Click to expand...

Anthony...can you give a brief, dumbed down step by step on taking a Redbook cd and getting a DSD128 file from HQplayer to output to the DAC?

onwardjames said:

Does the HQPlayer do the converting, or does your DAC do that?

Very interested, but I don't guess I quite understand. 23k flac files, would love to hear them at their best.

Click to expand...

If your DAC can convert DSD files (.dsf or .dff), HQplayer converts everything to high-rate DSD to pass onto that DAC. And here's the good part - HQplayer is VERY good at this task (leveraging the power of the computer) and even lower price DSD DACs can be VERY good at converting the resulting DSD stream to analog - often a much simpler task for them than PCM.

tomlinmgt said:

Anthony...can you give a brief, dumbed down step by step on taking a Redbook cd and getting a DSD128 file from HQplayer to output to the DAC?

Click to expand...

I was thinking I could, but then I figured since you are asking Anthony, someone would have to give me a Mac first followed by an extremely dumbed-down step-by-step on how to turn the thing on before I could start.

Oh crap...didn't see that Anthony has a Mac. Never mind!

Ok Bill, go ahead.

Again, there is no logical reason this conversion to DSD should sound better. After all you can't create something from nothing right? I've only done it to a few tracks using J.River but there seemed to be more detail and more spacial presence to the image. This was through a Sabre DAC (Audio-gd NFB-3) using USB for both the PCM and DSD images. This may be due to the DSD processing being better than the PCM in this DAC? The only reason I did not convert more was because of the excess storage space required. But setting something up with on the fly conversion would seem ideal if it works as well as the J.River. I don't think J.River does on the fly?

The new Sony DACs convert all files to DSD on the fly and are said to sound very good. Maybe this is a sign to come?

Your question can't be answered without breaking the rules set in the second post of this thread.

[Mod Edit: True, and I moved all of the theory posts over to their own thread.]

I don't have HQP or a MAC, but I'm sure it's about the same with a Windows 8.1 PC and Jriver.

stoutblock said:

Again, there is no logical reason this conversion to DSD should sound better. After all you can't create something from nothing right?

Click to expand...

You aren't creating something from nothing, you are using software to do the necessary filtering and conversion on a PC instead of on that $10 chip and compromised firmware in the DAC, then leveraging your DACs strength (delta-sigma straight-up in a Sabre DAC chip). Try doing the same with software that is better at it than Jriver (IMO of coarse) - it gets better.

stoutblock said:

This may be due to the DSD processing being better than the PCM in this DAC?

Click to expand...

Zactly.

stoutblock said:

Again, there is no logical reason this conversion to DSD should sound better. After all you can't create something from nothing right? I've only done it to a few tracks using J.River but there seemed to be more detail and more spacial presence to the image. This was through a Sabre DAC (Audio-gd NFB-3) using USB for both the PCM and DSD images. This may be due to the DSD processing being better than the PCM in this DAC? The only reason I did not convert more was because of the excess storage space required. But setting something up with on the fly conversion would seem ideal if it works as well as the J.River. I don't think J.River does on the fly?

The new Sony DACs convert all files to DSD on the fly and are said to sound very good. Maybe this is a sign to come?

Click to expand...

[Mod Edit: if the objectivists can't talk theory, neither can the subjectivists; please stick to experience.] I have a buddy with a $15k Mark Levinson CDP...it brings out the hidden detail lesser CDPs can't....but the transparency isnt there as with a $500 DSD DAC. I've listened to some expensive DSD DACs. And the only thing that has bettered them is a good TurnTable rig. And yes...Jriver does "on the fly".

The way I see it......if one is to want DSD 128 or higher , then be prepared to buy the drive space. As you noted above, prices are dropping.

as I am the OP, and trying to stay in line with what the moderator is trying to maintain, I want to be clear that I am a strong supporter that the conversions of lower resolution redbook to higher resolution DSD128 brings out information and improved musical experience than the original format as played on a moderately priced DAC.

I have observed this in my set up using the same DAC for both the PCM and DSD formats (Audio-gd NDB-3). Now maybe this particular DAC has poor PCM performance as compared to it's DSD performance or maybe it doesn't but I like what I hear in this conversion.

So the only thing negative I see with DSD is the storage requirement and if the conversion can be done on the fly from smaller resolution files than this sure sounds like a win/win to me?

Given there are DACs now available that do this "on the fly" conversion internally (Sony), I do believe there will be more soon following and this may be a direction DAC technology will be going?

Now maybe a better PCM DAC (ladder UK1704 etc) playing the original format might sound as good as the converted file through a DSD DAC, but at 4x the cost? I really don't think you can beat the economics of this DSD conversion through a Sabre DAC.