Is DSD in general more quiet than PCM?

[spiderking31]

very interesting indeed!

 

[gregorio]

But I feel I can hear more on SACD, as it has a lower noise floor!

SACD has the same noise floor as CD, roughly at about -120dB.

In other words, you don’t have to crank the volume as much as if you were listening to a RedBook!

If SACD did have a lower noise floor, then you would have to crank the volume more than with RedBook.

That’s just me….I’ve been listening to SACD’s for a few years now, and can confidently say DSD brings out more detail! Think of 1080P compared to 4K UHD! Just some food for thought……

You are confusing the content with the container. Using food as an analogy: We have a cheap, $1 plate (CD) and an expensive, $100 plate (SACD). We can put a fresh, artisan made hamburger on the expensive plate and a slightly stale MacDonalds on the cheap plate. As the artisan burger will taste better, can we say that the expensive plate makes food taste better? Obviously not, because we could swap the meals around and then the artisan burger on the cheap plate will taste better. The plate really doesn’t have anything to do with it. Furthermore, we’re not going to find $100 plates in a MacDonalds restaurant, only in expensive artisan restaurants.

This last part of the analogy refers to the fact that historically, you could only play SACDs on expensive equipment in a decent/good listening environment. While CDs could be played on cheap systems and in a wide variety of listening environments, for example in a car or ripped and played while out jogging. Therefore the SACD master could take advantage of those high quality listening conditions, while the CD master had to cater to a far wider range of reproduction equipment quality and listening environments. Again though, we could put that SACD master on the cheap plate (CD) and it would taste/sound exactly the same.

So your confidence is misplaced, it’s the different mastering that brings out the detail, not the SACD/DSD format.

G

 

[71 dB]

But I feel I can hear more on SACD, as it has a lower noise floor!

SACDs and CDs have a different noise floor spectrums, and since CDs use different kind of dither noises, even all CDs don't have the same noise floor. Recordings have noise themselves and that noise often dominates over the "format noise" which is unavoidable because of limited bit depth. Such noisy recordings should sound equally noisy on SACDs and CDs. If the music material is computer generated at 24 bit, then its noise floor can be theoretically so low, that the different "format noise" profiles of SACDs and CDs show up dominating the noise, but the "format noise" for both SACDs and CDs is so low, that it alone should never be audible in practical listening scenarios.

So, I wonder what exactly are you saying. People feel all kind of things. People feel they are going to win in lottery, but then they don't. Probably the knowledge the source being SACD makes you feel you hear more? That would be a normal common placebo effect. What if you didn't know if it is SACD or CD? How much would you hear then? My claim is you feel you can hear more on SACD because of the placebo effect makes you feel it has audibly lower noise floor.

Perhaps popular music SACDs use completely different masters than CDs, but I wouldn't know because I don't own such SACDs. I have dozens of SACDs, but they are classical music (the only music genre where SACD ever really became a thing and is actually alive still today). My SACDs are from such labels as BIS, CPO etc. To my experience, the CD layer and the stereo SACD layer sound pretty much identical to my ears and I don't feel like hearing more on SACD. The multichannel SACD layer is different from the other two because of the multichannel sound. Maybe it is placebo: My knowledge and understanding of digital audio makes me conclude the stereo layers must have audibly identical sound because there is not much how they could be audibly different.

It would be crazy, if the noise floor was audible enough to be compared! That would indicate at least the other format has audible noise floor, but that would mean that the format is NOT transparent which is one of the points of digital audio!

 

[old tech]

I will say this….I have DSOTM 30th anniversary hybrid, and an old version of DSOTM, and listening through my OPPO SACD player; and I can hear so much more on the SACD format, than that crumby old version of the album. Also, I have the Focal Utopia headphones. And a very nice setup! I can hear every nuance in the DSD version, over the PCM format! But yes….it does mostly rely on the mastering (thriller anymore on PCM???) that album can definitely compete with DSD SACD! But I feel I can hear more on SACD, as it has a lower noise floor! In other words, you don’t have to crank the volume as much as if you were listening to a RedBook! That’s just me….I’ve been listening to SACD’s for a few years now, and can confidently say DSD brings out more detail! Think of 1080P compared to 4K UHD! Just some food for thought……

The DSD layer on the DSOTM SACD is a different mastering to the CD (44.1) layer. In fact, the 44.1 version on the DSOTM is broadly considered the worst sounding digital version of that album, though it is all relative as none are really that bad.

Ironically, amongst many Pink Floyd tragics, the SACD version is not considered the best sounding digital version. This is all subjective of course, but the broad consensus is that the best sounding version is the first released (1983-84) Sony mastered 'black triangle' CD. Even the later EMI CD remasters are considered better sounding than the SACD version. The main appeal of the DSOTM SACD (among many other SACDs) is the multichannel format which does offer an immersive listening experience if you have the right set up at home.

 

[bigshot]

Especially the quad version mixed by Alan Parsons

 

[BobG55]

The DSD layer on the DSOTM SACD is a different mastering to the CD (44.1) layer. In fact, the 44.1 version on the DSOTM is broadly considered the worst sounding digital version of that album, though it is all relative as none are really that bad.

Ironically, amongst many Pink Floyd tragics, the SACD version is not considered the best sounding digital version. This is all subjective of course, but the broad consensus is that the best sounding version is the first released (1983-84) Sony mastered 'black triangle' CD. Even the later EMI CD remasters are considered better sounding than the SACD version. The main appeal of the DSOTM SACD (among many other SACDs) is the multichannel format which does offer an immersive listening experience if you have the right set up at home.

I own the 1983 “Black Triangle” CD and it’s mastered by Toshiba/ EMI [& engineered by Alan Parsons]. I know it’s the 1983 copy because of the CP35-3017 number. [I took and added photos of my CD version, below]

 

[Davesrose]

The DSD layer on the DSOTM SACD is a different mastering to the CD (44.1) layer. In fact, the 44.1 version on the DSOTM is broadly considered the worst sounding digital version of that album, though it is all relative as none are really that bad.

Ironically, amongst many Pink Floyd tragics, the SACD version is not considered the best sounding digital version. This is all subjective of course, but the broad consensus is that the best sounding version is the first released (1983-84) Sony mastered 'black triangle' CD. Even the later EMI CD remasters are considered better sounding than the SACD version. The main appeal of the DSOTM SACD (among many other SACDs) is the multichannel format which does offer an immersive listening experience if you have the right set up at home.

I only have the SACD, because horrors of horrors, I'm not a Pink Floyd die hard fan and got the album when I was collecting SACDs. Beforehand, I did get The Wall on CD when I was a BMG club member in high school. I did borrow an older vinyl issue of it: honestly I found the dynamics of my SACD better, but I know vinyl heads still say the record is most superior. So there you go: never mind that perhaps more differences could be negated with level matching....people will be conditioned to their preferred medium.

 

[old tech]

I own the 1983 “Black Triangle” CD and it’s mastered by Toshiba/ EMI [& engineered by Alan Parsons]. I know it’s the 1983 copy because of the CP35-3017 number. [I took and added photos of my CD version, below]

Hi Bob

Unfortunately yours in not a 1983 CD and probably* does not have the highly regarded Sony mastering (which is essentially a copy of the master Sony used for the 1978 Pro Use LP). The TO in matrix runout confirms yours is more likely* the much more common later EMI mastering released in the latter half of 1985 (the fourth reissue) and ran until around 1988. The CP35-3017 number is common to all DSOTM black triangle issues. The EMI mastering you have is still a nice sounding CD but not as highly regarded as the earlier Sony mastered version which does not have TO in the matrix*.

*adding to the confusion, some of the earlier 1985 CDs with TO in the matrix (the third reissue) also have the earlier Sony mastering. The only way to be absolutely certain is to check for pre-emphasis. If there is pre-emphasis it is the Sony version. In fact, if you rip the files off the Sony mastered CDs and play them back without de-emphasising them (which CD players automatically do), they can sound a bit bright.