[analogsurviver]

  ...you calling me names was a figure of speech...

No problems -"multitasking"  plus not being native English speaker may produce awkward response from my part sometimes.

 

[BlackbeardBen]

I'll suggest that there is a practical way to ABX double blind test DSD versus PCM audio.
 
At least, if one starts with the assumption that if DSD audio at sufficient sample rate is superior, and that a PCM ADC/DAC loop would degrade or otherwise affect the sound audibly.
 
At least one commercial ABX switch box is available with line level and amplified level switching.  It would be trivial; given the resources to purchase, rent, or borrow such a switch box; to test a DSD file output to a DSD DAC, and ABX compare with and without the PCM ADC/DAC loop.
 
If a difference is clearly audible, this would unequivocally demonstrate so.

 

[Phishin Phool]

Are you only saying that native DSD DAC are an improvement or are dacs that accept DSD via. DoP included as well? There are reasonably (~$400) native DACs and sub $200 dsd via dop DACs available.

 

[Currawong]

I was going to try and recover this thread by moving the DSD discussion out of it, but since it goes back well into last year, it is simpler to re-open the thread. It is beyond being able to do.

 

[Phishin Phool]

So it is done?

 

[StanD]

So it is done?

I think he discovered that time travel is a myth. OK, back to BS.

 

[KeithEmo]

Actually - while what you said makes perfect sense - it's also wrong (in terms of what you're hoping to achieve). Unfortunately, it's virtually impossible to do a "simple" comparison between DSD and PCM, and here's why:
 
WHENEVER you convert a file from PCM to DSD, or from DSD to PCM, the conversion process is not a simple bit-perfect conversion - there is always digital filtering involved. In essence, this means that there's no way you can ever have "identical PCM and DSD copies of the same content" to compare. If you start with a 24/192 PCM file and convert it into DSD, the DSD file you end up with will be slightly different depending on which converter program you use and what options you pick; likewise, if you start with a DSD file, and convert it to PCM, the PCM files you end up with will sound slightly different depending on what converter and options you use. (I heard a demo of two files, both converted to 24/96 PCM from a DSD master, using Korg Audiogate and Weiss Saracon, the top two converter programs, and they absolutely sounded subtly different. The difference wasn't huge, but it was at least as large as the difference between either of the PCM conversions and the DSD original.)
 
Even if you were to start with an actual live performance, and record it in both PCM and DSD, using the same microphone, preamp, and recorder for both, you would STILL be comparing the differences between PCM and DSD WHEN RECORDED BY THAT PARTICULAR RECORDER. And, of course, when you purchase a commercial DSD file or high-def PCM file, both have been "mastered" - and not necessarily handled the exact same way. Likewise, if you were to play a DSD file on your Oppo, and configure the Oppo to convert to PCM, it wouldn't necessarily sound identical to a PCM file you got by converting that DSD to PCM using some OTHER device or software.
 
Likewise, if you started with some digital audio file in some third format, not directly equivalent to either, then converted it into both DSD and PCM versions, you would be comparing both the formats themselves and the colorations of each of the two conversion processes - which, of necessity, WILL be different.
 
I'm not trying to be discouraging here. It's just that, in this particular case, you can never get rid of all the other variables. About the best you could do would be to prove that, in a particular situation, and with particular equipment, NO difference was audible. (If we know that there are indeed slight differences in the content itself, but we can't hear any difference at all, then we have pretty well proven that NEITHER the differences between the two files NOR the differences between the two formats are audible. But, if we do hear a difference, we can't know which variable is causing them.)
 
In fact, there's even a third variable. Since the optimum reconstruction filters for DSD and PCM are slightly different, it's also quite possible that the DAC we happen to be using for the comparison might itself sound better with either PCM or DSD content - not because of the format itself, but because the design of that particular DAC is better optimized for playing one or the other.
 
Quote:

  I'll suggest that there is a practical way to ABX double blind test DSD versus PCM audio.
 
At least, if one starts with the assumption that if DSD audio at sufficient sample rate is superior, and that a PCM ADC/DAC loop would degrade or otherwise affect the sound audibly.
 
At least one commercial ABX switch box is available with line level and amplified level switching.  It would be trivial; given the resources to purchase, rent, or borrow such a switch box; to test a DSD file output to a DSD DAC, and ABX compare with and without the PCM ADC/DAC loop.
 
If a difference is clearly audible, this would unequivocally demonstrate so.

 

[Yuri Korzunov]

Any comparision (DSD vs. PCM or 44 vs.129 or 16 vs. 24) can't be exact from technical point of view.
 
Here we:
 
1. Resample and compare converters, or
2. Simultaneously capture and compare capturing devices.
 
Even sometime suggested comparing of studio releases DSD and PCM by one label. Here we don't know what from two aforecited cases was applied. Also different mixing/mastering/postproduction.

 

[lamode]

I could add that as resolutions of both formats become higher, the conversion artefacts also dominish. At some point they will be inaudible. Where that limit is is a matter of controversy, and I'm skeptical that people could reliably pick between formats in an ABX test.

 

[maverickronin]

 

 
Actually BlackbeardBen is right on this one.  The key phrase is...
 

  At least, if one starts with the assumption that if DSD audio at sufficient sample rate is superior, and that a PCM ADC/DAC loop would degrade or otherwise affect the sound audibly.

 
We're not talking about digitally converting a DSD file to PCM, we're taking the output of a DSD DAC, feeding it into a PCM ADC and then out through a PCM DAC.  This sidesteps all the issues about conversion quality and filter optimization since there is not digital format conversion and there are two separate DACs.  If DSD has "something" audible which PCM doesn't, then the ADC/DAC loop will degrade the signal and get rid of that 'something', whatever it may be.  If you can switch the ADC/DAC loop in and out without audible differences then the conclusion will be that PCM is at least as good as DSD.
 
I'd forgotten about it before, but this is is a pretty standard way to test formats so different that they can't be played back with the same hardware.  For example, there have been tests where a PCM ADC/DAC has been switched in and out while listening to vinyl and people couldn't tell the difference either.

 

[BlackbeardBen]

You totally missed the point of my post.

There is zero need for digital conversion to or from DSD to PCM to compare them via the method I proposed.

You would take the analog output of the DSD DAC and run it into a comparator that can switch between a pass-through and a level matched PCM ADC/DAC loop.

It doesn't matter how the signal gets to analog before the PCM ADC/DAC loop. You could run the same ADC/DAC loop to do null testing against any source, be it a master tape, vinyl, high res PCM, etc.

Obviously you would be testing a whole ADC/DAC loop rather than one or the other. But since the whole point is to establish the audible transparency or lack thereof of PCM audio relative to some other format, this isn't contrary to the test goals.

 

[Yuri Korzunov]

  We're not talking about digitally converting a DSD file to PCM, we're taking the output of a DSD DAC, feeding it into a PCM ADC and then out through a PCM DAC.  This sidesteps all the issues about conversion quality and filter optimization since there is not digital format conversion and there are two separate DACs.  If DSD has "something" audible which PCM doesn't, then the ADC/DAC loop will degrade the signal and get rid of that 'something', whatever it may be.  If you can switch the ADC/DAC loop in and out without audible differences then the conclusion will be that PCM is at least as good as DSD.
 
I'd forgotten about it before, but this is is a pretty standard way to test formats so different that they can't be played back with the same hardware.  For example, there have been tests where a PCM ADC/DAC has been switched in and out while listening to vinyl and people couldn't tell the difference either.

Could you attach drawing of test scheme for univocal understanding, please?

 

[Roly1650]

Keith, your post are always interesting, you are one of the few "wordy" posters I ever bother reading in there entirety, but I do have a small request. When you post your reply before quoting the post you're replying to, then your post can't be quoted without cut and paste, a pita on a tablet or phone. If there's a break in posting activity it then makes it difficult to pick up the thread quickly, because you have to look back to find out what post of yours is being responded to by a subsequent poster, quoting you. All you get is, "Originally Posted by KeithEmo". If you insert the quote from the post you're replying to first and then your reply, your post can then be quoted properly. Please cut a small break for us lazy, banana fingered sods.

 

[maverickronin]

  Could you attach drawing of test scheme for univocal understanding, please?

 
I just whipped this up in a couple minutes on draw.io but it should help some.
 

 

[BlackbeardBen]

I just whipped this up in a couple minutes on draw.io but it should help some.

Note that in most cases with a single output from the original source (DSD in this case), you will need the PCM loop input and output both through the switch box. Essentially, like a tape loop.

Actually, you could pretty easily use a receiver or preamp tape loop for a single blind test.

Also to note for everyone else, you aren't limited to testing the transparency of PCM ADC/DAC by this method. It works for just about anything you can convert or change in real time. That includes testing cables, signal processors, etc., etc.