[germanium]

I deleted all the Audacity & Cakewalk Sonar files as well as the programs & am using the trial of Sound Forge 10 Pro. Superb program!!!! I created some 24 bit 192KHz FLACs though only a couple as it really slows down the proccess through Sound Forge. They sound just like the output of my modded SCD-C222ES SACD player ( very nice sounding once modded, same sound signature as the Xonar STX though still somewhat less resolving due to the lower end DAC in the SACD player. This DAC does not even offer balanced output unlike the Xonars DAC but really does come close in terms of sound quality in spite of the low end DAC. This was not even close to true when the SACD player was stock.)

All my other files created by Sound Forge are 24 bit 192KHZ wave files with no other proccessing than a slight reduction of the input volume to keep it from clipping as the SACD players output is slightly above line input norm. This was done in the sound cards driver & not the program.

 

[sagatman]

Until recently I recorded all my SACD using sony SCD-XA1200ES, Essence ST and sony sound forge in Multichannel 96kHz flac. I really enjoy these 96kHz 24-bit multichannel musics played by Foobar converting 5.1 to stereo, Essence ST and Stax 4040. The sound quality of SACD layer is definitely better than RBCD layer digitally ripped by EAC.

The line-in ability of Essence ST is only in 2 channel so I had to record 3 times in 192kHz for each multi-channel SACD. The 5 channel sound was combined in one file in sony sound forge. The sample rate was down-converted to 96kHz because i've never observed a meaningful harmonic over 40kHz in spectrum before being burying in the the DSD high-frequency noise. So I think 96kHz is adequate for music in DSD.

Why not just record the DSD stereo layer? Because the multi-channel onvering to stereo in foobar is still better than the DSD stereo in my perception in some of my SACD. DSD multichannel provide more surrounding, spacial sensation. It seems reasonable because the original recording scene is straight in DSD multi-channel format. DSD stereo is a product of mixing.

Technically I prefer PCM over DSD but the SACD is currently the only path to enjoy 24-bit high quality multi-channel recording except BD IMHO. Pentatone issued many high quality SACD and someone has xonar essence and SACD player should give it a try~ Using a sound card with B.Brown 1792 DAC to play 16-bit RBCD is a waste~~