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In Reply to: RE: Yeah, there's Always a reason any Comparison is Invalid. posted by oldmkvi on October 01, 2016 at 16:24:00
But Roy's original question was whether 24/192 represented a downgrade in sound quality compared to DSD. My answer is, not a chance! In fact, the specs for both formats far exceed what an analog master from c. 1960 is even capable of. However, unlike PCM, DSD does have a sprinkling of ultrasonic noise, which you can see for yourself using spectrographic software. (There's of course legitimate debate as to whether the effects of this DSD noise can be heard in the audible frequencies.)
Several years ago, on SA-CD.net, Robert van Bahr of BIS ran a little quiz on the Vanska/Minnesota Beethoven symphony recordings. A big scandal had just broken out when it was revealed that, although BIS (like Chandos) issued a number of SACD's with "DSD" proudly proclaimed on the back of the disc insert, the vast majority of the BIS masters at that time were in fact PCM - and not even 24/96, but 24/48! There ensued a horrible weeping and gnashing of the teeth among the site's DSD fetishists concerning this betrayal on the part of BIS. So at that point, Robert revealed that two of the nine Beethoven symphonies in the Vanska/Minnesota set actually had DSD masters. So the question became, could these golden eared DSD proponents tell which symphonies came from the DSD masters. Of dozens and dozens of guesses, only two or three listeners got it correct! And remember, the highest PCM specs that BIS ever uses are 24/96 - not 24/192. When Robert revealed the correct answers, there was again much weeping and gnashing of the teeth from the DSD contingent, most of whom had guessed wrong.
What I conclude from all this is that arguing about the superiority of one or the other format (i.e., PCM vs. DSD) is like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Follow Ups:
Chris, out of curioisty, I want to know which of the Vanska set were DSD recordings.
Also, concerning room correction software, Audyssey will down-rez to 24/96 before applying its corrections. Still, I prefer the results I get with Audyssey XT32 than what I hear when listening to DSD files converted directly to analog without intermediate conversion to PCM.
We could have gone back and looked it up on the original posts, if only the owner, in a fit of pique, hadn't seen fit to destroy the whole portion of his site holding the posts, produced over several years, by both listeners and industry leaders. I used to have a couple of SACD's in the Vanska Beethoven collection, but, for some reason, I got rid of them a long time ago. Of course, no matter which format you buy, SACD or PCM download, you're going to run into format conversions somewhere along the way (in one symphony or another).
Regarding room correction, what you say is true. Of course, one can always work around the room correction if so desired. For instance, I have an older player which decodes DSD directly and connects via its analogue connections, in case I want to hear the actual DSD recordings (on SACD anyway) without conversion to PCM for the room correction.
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