If DSD can deliver the same thing that vinyl does and allows people to listen on the go, I can hardly understand why it's met with such negativity.
Clearing up mis-perceptions, e.g. "DSD delivering the same thing vinyl does" should not be taken as "negativity."
There's no substantial subjective difference between DSD and CD (16/44 PCM) and none whatsoever with 24/96 PCM. (And with the PHA-2's off-the-shelf TI chip amplifier solution, I'm not sure anyone would be able to discern differences between DSD or 16/44 PCM if there were any. Sort of disappointing they went this direction because I've always liked the Sony S-Master amps and heard a lot of potential with those.) In fact, DSD is actually technically inferior to 24/96 PCM because the DSD band above 30-40kHz becomes polluted with noise because of 1-bit noise shaping techniques. I have CD recordings that sound better than the the DSD versions and vice versa (which is more often the case, so I guess DSD is "better" than CD.)
It depends more on the mastering than final format.
A good master on CD will sound better than vinyl. Personally, I collect vinyl, SACD, hires PCM for simply one reason: to expand the pool of recordings / masters available - not because any one format is inherently better than the other - with the exception of vinyl which is the most inferior because of noise, limited dynamic range, limited extension, etc.
It's been speculated that because current vinyl and SACD are
niche formats, the mastering engineers are under less pressure from studio heads to mess up recordings (apply massive compression, increase brightness, etc.). Many early CDs sounded horrible because recordings weren't being mastered to the format - it was a new format with much more extended and accurate frequency range than vinyl. Many new CD
remasters also sound horrible because of the extra compression and increased brightness. Ironically, some SACDs have taken as their source these CD remasters.
Whether or not I'll actually be able to tell any difference is another thing, but I'm sure that some part of my mind will be at ease knowing that I am listening to music that's well near uncompromised by its format.
DSD already is a compromised format (read above comments on noise-shaping.) 99.9% of studios master in hires PCM, so there's a translation to DSD which results in decimation of the original PCM data. In fact, it's generally not possible to record, mix, or master in 1-bit, unless you have specialized equipment which is very expensive and really only available until fairly recently. Ironically, 99% of SACDs are sourced from analog tape or PCM.
I'm not saying DSD is bad, but the question is really is "how much DSD ya got?" (like right now, not in one or two years based on hopeful speculation and insider rumors that Sony will make a big push toward releasing their entire catalog on DSD, because by then it's likely you'll have upgraded to another portable player.)