starfish
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2007
- Posts
- 79
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- 11
Just stirring the pot a bit... Isn't DSD a dead format for all intents and purposes? SACD shares essentially the same fate as all optical media, no? Not my expert opinion per se, but I do remember reading quite a bit of technical data about 24 bit PCM providing 24db additional dynamic range over DSD64. So even in a theoretical digital file scenario, it looks like hi-res FLAC is much more likely here to stay than 1-bit DSD file format, assuming such an offering of downloadable titles would grow independent of the SACD disc format itself. Philips divested their interest in that technology several years ago which isn't a strong vote of confidence.
This isn't to say there is no practical value in extending the W4S DAC-2 to include DSD. But the likely use (for most of the market) will be as an outboard DAC for an SACD player. How many of those SACD players already have a world class DAC built in? Although a relatively small demand, DSD does lend extra utility and perhaps market share in a critical area of the audiophile market. This could be an additional boost to reputation and feature set if nothing else. But it's hard to see a large and practical audiophile and/or consumer demand.
This isn't to say there is no practical value in extending the W4S DAC-2 to include DSD. But the likely use (for most of the market) will be as an outboard DAC for an SACD player. How many of those SACD players already have a world class DAC built in? Although a relatively small demand, DSD does lend extra utility and perhaps market share in a critical area of the audiophile market. This could be an additional boost to reputation and feature set if nothing else. But it's hard to see a large and practical audiophile and/or consumer demand.
, no wonder people are poor here.