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PENTATONE said:
Looking forward to hear your opinions on these developments.
Just speaking for myself: Seven years ago I bought my first sa-cd player and discs, and was fan of the medium from the start for it's great sound. Natural, involving, bright and not fatiguing. Since five years I try to make a streaming network to my hifi. First with squeezebox/pc, then sonos/nas. But I was never happy with the sound, still preferred to listen to sa-cd's. But I like the user friendliness of the Sonos and the playback on my hifi of streaming services as Spotify and Qobuz.
Recently I bought an Oppo 105D, which can render streaming dsd from my nas to the player, over ethernet, wired. I downloaded some test files, basicly from 2L, and did some experiments. The only mch testing I could do was between flac 24/96 and dsd64. I might be biased in favor of dsd, but I was quite surprised I could hear that much difference between the two, more than I expected on basis of the bitrate per second. On what I heard, I guess there must be a fundamental difference in the playback of pcm and dsd, since both the formats in my experiment are derived from the same masterfile. Then I listened to a title from 2L I have both on sa-cd and blu-ray. This time pcm 24/192 vs dsd64. To my ears they have the same level of quality, but perform different. Pcm is more direct, but also louder and somewhat harsh in the high frequencies. Dsd sounds somewhat softer in the high frequencies and more natural. I found the sound of violins more authentic in dsd than in pcm. Not huge differences, but audible.
I like to understand what I perceive. And this is what I make of it: digital audio is known to have most distortion in waves with a small amplitude (low energy) and relatively few samples per wave. So it has something to do with the high frequencies. When reveration waves of a particular overtone have very little energy, they are not processed correct from pcm. Pcm brings them in phase with the dominant wave of the same frequency (the overtone), thus amplifying that particular overtone. Resulting in louder and sharper sound in the high frequencies. Musicality strongly depends on the relation between overtones, so if one of them is reproduced louder, it might affect the musicality of the music played back.
If my reasoning is true, than there is a fundamental difference in the playback of pcm and dsd. It won't be the Oppo, wich is not rebuked as a dsd dac, but rather as a pcm dac. I do not have golden ears either, I do not hear differences from interlinks others do. I think the reason I can hear it, is in the tweeters of my speakers. You need very accurate tweeters to hear the benefits from dsd over pcm. High quality tweeters are rather expensive, and not everybody cares. So, even expensive speakers do not always have very good sounding and accurate tweeters. Which could explain the different listening experiences you can find on internet.
Anyway, on my hifi set, I prefer to listen to music in dsd. So I won't buy pcm 16/44.1, I can listen to it with Qobuz on the Sonos. And if I really like the music, I buy a cd (or sa-cd, if available). I did buy a dsd64 mch album, which is only available as cd-only at the moment. More as a try-out than as a serious start in buying download content. Streaming dsd is still in a experimental stage. I have metadata displayed on the Oppo, but no artwork. Also, the Oppo can only be used as a digital media player, not as a digital mediarender. There are no media controller yet, that can control the streaming from nas to the Oppo. So, as things are at this moment, it is too much fuss to playback dsd files on the Oppo, just taking one of the discs near the player is more tempting. There is some 'out of sight, out of mind' effect on music on my nas, since I have quitte a large collection of sa-cd's near the player.
I'm open to new developments as streaming music. But when I sit back to listen to good music, quality of playback is important to me, but also convenience. Streamng dsd doesn't offer it enough yet.
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Ad Rhenum said:
I did buy a dsd64 mch album, which is only available as cd-only at the moment. More as a try-out than as a serious start in buying download content. Streaming dsd is still in a experimental stage. I have metadata displayed on the Oppo, but no artwork. Also, the Oppo can only be used as a digital media player, not as a digital mediarender. There are no media controller yet, that can control the streaming from nas to the Oppo. So, as things are at this moment, it is too much fuss to playback dsd files on the Oppo, just taking one of the discs near the player is more tempting. There is some 'out of sight, out of mind' effect on music on my nas, since I have quitte a large collection of sa-cd's near the player.
You can use the Oppo as a digital media player and as a digital media renderer, albeit via different ports.
Also, you might be interested in this: http://english.digibit.es/index.php/aria-kit-for-oppo-105.html
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Post by Chris April 7, 2014 (53 of 91)
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It is of course important to always backup your files on separate hardrives SSD drive, usb stick or spinning disk hardrives.
But if disaster really strikes and for some reason you loose your digital files, there are some customer friendly sites that let you download your files again and again if needed.
Your downloads are always accessible once paid for at those sites.
Pentatone only allows three download attempts and if the above happens or all download attempts fail,what happens?
Would you have to pay for your music all over again?
This only theoretical hopefully it won't happen but if?
And as things stand I have no intention to download anything from Pentatone's site anyway.
I can get the stereo pcm 24/96 files cheaper from other sites and I don't want both mch and stereo as zipfiles,nor isos at all.
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Pentatone, would you do a quick file size comparison of a few of the ISOs you're offering for download with the uncompressed stereo DSD files? Is there really a dramatic size difference?
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We did a comparison in the difference in size. The dsd.iso file is about 20% bigger then the DSD stereo would be. But, therefore it's less then half the size of the mch version alone. So in figures:
Stereo size in DFF: 2.8GB
mch size in DFF: 7GB
DSD.iso: 3,5GB
Some more arguments why we choose the dsd.iso file as a release format:
People bought SA-CD's for almost fifteen years now, on the SA-CD disk there's a stereo and a mch version. Up to today I have never ever heard somebody complain that they got the a mch version for free.
The same is happening now with Master quality downloads from PENTATONE, for the same prize the competition is charging you for only a stereo.dff download, PENTATONE offers a stereo and a mch version of the album. So there should be no complains about being expensive since that's not the case.
There are many people listening in surround, but sometimes they have to listen in stereo, if they want to use headphones for example. It would be unfair to make those people pay a double prize just because they want to listen in both versions. So everybody should consider one of the versions in the iso file as an extra, free of charge. (the only extra they pay is 20% more download time).
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Ad Rhenum said:
...
Several comments-
First, did you accurately level match the DSD and PCM in your comparison? There is a level difference, usually, between the two and doing it by ear alone is notoriously inaccurate. Of course, if there are truly frequency response differences, in the highs, say, then full frequency range calibrations for equal level are not totally accurate, either. But, something like measuring test tones around 1,000 HZ should give a much better level consistency than you can do by ear. But, then again, finding consistent test signals for a DSD vs. PCM comparison might be near impossible, as is using music.
I do believe that DSD tends to sound softer in the highs, and I understand that many would prefer this. I also believe that many speakers in many home settings tend to be too bright as a result of speaker voicing, room effects and the rest of the system, of course. So, the match of DSD and most setups might be more ideal and preferred. Others might consider DSD to have an unnatural deadening impact on the highs, and many do. The paradigm of flat system response providing nice, reasonably flat published anechoic curves just does not work when listening in the room.
I have no clear preference in my setup. I am quite happy with both. But, I tend to listen to everything via DSD-PCM conversion to gain the considerable benefits of room EQ. That, among other things, provides a controlled HF rolloff to account for both direct and reflected energy, and it might, together with my aging ears, attenuate some audible consequences of PCM HF emphasis, if any.
I have also heard a number of pure DSD setups that sounded distinctly inferior to most room EQ'ed setups via PCM that I have heard. Others can sound superb via DSD, including some with careful room treatment. So, many things factor into the playback equation. Preference for DSD is not uncommon and it might deliver the best results overall in many circumstances, as it has in yours. But, it all depends on many things.
So, the debate continues. However, I am glad you have found an answer that works best for you in your system and room.
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Post by gumby April 8, 2014 (57 of 91)
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PENTATONE said:
Looking forward to hear your opinions on these developments.
I think this is great. I particularly like getting both the stereo and MCH DSD files because I have distributed audio in my home and can use both. I convert the dsf to 24,88 PCM for that purpose. It is the same as buying the SACD, which is the way it should be.
It seems this future proofs the music collection in several ways. You get the edit masters. Everyone involved in the initial recording and production agreed this is the best they can do. It is an archive. No worries about something coming out later that would be better. I prefer MCH when I can, but I have the stereo files if I ever find that is no longer practical to listen this way.
I took me a couple hours to get the tools and get set up, but after that it was relatively painless. My first download was 4.36GB and took less than hour. Extracted it was almost 11GB, about 3.1 for the stereo and 7.7 for the MCH. This would have taken all day a couple years ago using a download manager.
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Post by AmonRa April 8, 2014 (58 of 91)
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Ad Rhenum said:
If my reasoning is true,
It is not. Several basic misunderstandings of digital audio. Not possible to lecture with my meager daily wordcount.
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Post by 51surr April 8, 2014 (59 of 91)
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Kal Rubinson said:
You can use the Oppo as a digital media player and as a digital media renderer, albeit via different ports.
Also, you might be interested in this: http://english.digibit.es/index.php/aria-kit-for-oppo-105.html
Kal
A question "Do The Oppo players convert a DSD/SACD to PCM before feeding to the DAC or in the DAC before going to the analog outputs?"
Thanks
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51surr said:
A question "Do The Oppo players convert a DSD/SACD to PCM before feeding to the DAC or in the DAC before going to the analog outputs?"
I presume(!) the former since they can output PCM digital without passing through the DAC at all.
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