Thread: bitstream pure DSD, my 2 cents

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Post by Yoropiko1 January 31, 2012 (21 of 74)
Ubertrout said:

Just so we're clear, the RX-V2067 is the European version of the US model RX-A2000, and the RX-V3067 is the European version of the RX-A3000?

I just got a RX-A3000 with DSD1796 DACS and can test this out...but my speakers are pretty mediocre (they're my next upgrade item).

Yes I believe you are correct, thus you should have a mixture of DSD1796 and DSD1791 Dacs in your RX-A3000 ^ _ ^ I would love to find out how you feel regards the DSD vs PCM conversion debate given you have a receiver capable of doing both. I assume you also have a transport capable of outputting DSD and PCM to enable you to make that comparison? The speakers will likely be a limiting factor given even those who can hear a difference would agree it is in the main quite subtle and of course which sounds best is going to be purely subjective anyway.

Keep us posted ^ _ ^

Post by Ubertrout February 1, 2012 (22 of 74)
My transport is a Oppo BDP-93. I'll return to this thread once I have everything in place and let you know.

Post by Yoropiko1 February 1, 2012 (23 of 74)
Ubertrout said:

My transport is a Oppo BDP-93. I'll return to this thread once I have everything in place and let you know.

An excellent set up too with the Oppo BDP-93, cant wait to hear the results : )

Post by soundboy February 1, 2012 (24 of 74)
I really think the manufacturers themselves don't have any idea what kind of processing are done within their own receivers. For example, one of the highlighted features of Onkyo's TX-SR876 was "DSD Direct". I suppose one can legitimately assume that there's only a DSD>>>analog conversion done. However, in the owner's manual of the TX-SR876, it also states "DSD sources are converted and handled as PCM". If this is indeed what's happening, where's the "DSD Direct" coming from? Perhaps bad translation?

By the way, the Burr-Brown DSD1796 DAC, at least on paper, seems to be identical to the Burr-Brown PCM1796 DAC. Their specs are the same as well as the language used to describe each DAC. Both are DSD capable chips, based on what I can tell from TI's website. I was curious about the PCM1796 since this chip was used in Onkyo's DV-SP506 universal player (non Blu-ray capable) and from all the comments I've read, does a direct DSD>>>analog conversion. The PCM1796 DAC is also used in the TX-SR876 and yet we have what was stated in its owner's manual. I suppose there may be differences in implementation.

Post by Yoropiko1 February 1, 2012 (25 of 74)
Yeah it does seem amazing that any manufacturer simply cannot or will not give straight and clear information about the very products it designs. Needless to say I ve received no reply from Yamaha regards my own enquiry other than the standard e mail with a ref. Number, I think the truth is I wont get one either.

Post by Fitzcaraldo215 February 2, 2012 (26 of 74)
Yoropiko1 said:

Yeah it does seem amazing that any manufacturer simply cannot or will not give straight and clear information about the very products it designs. Needless to say I ve received no reply from Yamaha regards my own enquiry other than the standard e mail with a ref. Number, I think the truth is I wont get one either.

The engineers in Japan obviously know the answer, but the US customer support people don't because it is not on the spec sheet. I do not think they are necessarily trying to hide anything, but organizational departmentalization, language issues, etc. may be the culprits. This is after all a pretty obscure spec that only our tiny niche cares about.

I do seem to recall a Yamaha player that Kal reviewed not too long ago that converted DSD to 176k PCM via HDMI. They were apparently quite enthusilastic about that, and made it known to him. But, it appears nowhere on their website or spec sheet.

Post by Yoropiko1 February 2, 2012 (27 of 74)
Well I guess I have to take back my previous comment, because today I did in fact receive a reply to my enquiry to Yamaha UK, here is what they said;

"Thanks for your email and for your interest in Yamaha A/V & Hi-fi.

With regards to your question on your RX-V2067, the DSD signal gets down sampled
to 88.2kHz/24bit (straight mode) first and then transmitted to DAC for analogue conversion,
in case of enabling Pure Direct mode.

Hope this helps.

Many thanks

Yamaha Technical A/V

A/V & Hi-fi Technical Support Team
Yamaha Music Europe GmbH (UK)
Sherbourne Drive
Tilbrook
Milton Keynes
MK7 8BL"

So there you have it straight from Yamaha themselves it would appear that any incoming DSD is converted to the same rez as my DVD99 does ( ie 24Bit 88.2KHz, which is perhaps the most common conversion done by transports ). I suppose I could evalutate the quality of the conversion and compare it to that of the DVD99 given the same level of conversion is carried out. Is it better to convert internally within the transport and send to the receiver, or let the receiver do the conversion from the raw DSD, in all honesty I dought there would be much if any difference.
Regards Yamaha Japan, I can imagine why they would be particularly happy about their player being able to do this as it is not very common. Few SACD players convert to much higher than 88.2Khz and if their own range of receivers except the very top tier cannot do anything with DSD, then allowing a higher conversion inside the player and outputting it should be better sound quality wise than the downsampled 88.2Khz their receivers are capable of.
However its interesting because I always maintained that I much preferred the conversion to 176.4Khz/24Bit from the PS3 even when I " believed " at that time my DSD was being converted straight to analog when sent from the DVD99 or at worse perhaps being converted to PCM at 192Khz/24Bit given that is what the Yamaha's internal DAC is capable of.
So here I am now, previously of the belief also that the difference between 88.2KHz and 176.4Khz would be so small as to make little or no difference but clearly I could hear a difference!! Maybe I do have golden ears after all ( just kidding ), maybe I just imagined it all, but my preferrence was real and I can only put it down to the fact that the PS3 converts SACD's DSD to a higher PCM. I assume that my receivers internal Dacs would simply pass the 176.4Khz signal as is from the PS3 and just convert straight to analog thus maintaining that higher resolution through to analog.

So this leads me now to the belief that 176.4Khz is audibly better, to me at least, than 88.2Khz when in fact it should be very hard to tell them apart. I'm not suggesting I could ever tell either apart in a blind listening test, but I know it wasnt psycological either ( ie I wasnt aware before hand that the PS3 was delivering a higher rez signal, in fact quite the opposite, I believed it was sending an inferior signal to the raw DSD my DVD99 was sending ).

So my only current way to hear pure DSD>>>Analog is via my trusty Denon 3910 ( and I wasnt even aware it did this until I researched my Receivers internal capability ) through the analog 6 channel output. However I still prefer the sound of my PS3 over the Denon. I do still wonder though if I had been able to transmit DSD to my receiver via HDMI and convert it to analog would it have been any better than my Denon? I guess I'll never really know for sure, maybe it would have sounded the same, in truth the Denon just does the internal conversion and sends the analog signal out rather than the other way round. I am intringued however to see if maintaining the DSD digitally right up to the point it is converted to analog by the reciever has a benefit over convering DSD>>>analog in the player and simply using the analog connection into the receivers own 6 channel input.

So there you have it, I eagerly await the results from Ubertrout comparing DSD to PCM via his RX V3067, although I accept that his own preferences carry no more weight than mine and may not represent the opinion of the majority either way. Still, wont it be interesting if he does prefer PCM?? LOL ^ _ ^

Post by Iain February 2, 2012 (28 of 74)
Yoropiko1 said:

............

So this leads me now to the belief that 176.4Khz is audibly better, to me at least, than 88.2Khz when in fact it should be very hard to tell them apart. I'm not suggesting I could ever tell either apart in a blind listening test, but I know it wasnt psycological either ( ie I wasnt aware before hand that the PS3 was delivering a higher rez signal, in fact quite the opposite, I believed it was sending an inferior signal to the raw DSD my DVD99 was sending ).

.............

I noticed that the higher PCM resolution (176.4 Khz) sounds significantly better than the lower resolution quite some time ago. Better spacial clarity and transient response are just a few of the reasons.

I currently have two universal players; a Pioneer DV-610 DVD player from 2008 and a Sony BDP-S770 blu-ray player from 2011. The Pioneer sits on top of the Sony in my cabinet, so it's very easy to compare both PCM resolutions; Pioneer at 88.2 Khz and the Sony at 176.4 Khz. Both players were top-end when they were new.

Not sure if this is down to transport differences, but the Sony sounds a lot cleaner.

Post by Yoropiko1 February 2, 2012 (29 of 74)
Iain said:

I noticed that the higher PCM resolution (176.4 Khz) sounds significantly better than the lower resolution quite some time ago. Better spacial clarity and transient response are just a few of the reasons.

I currently have two universal players; a Pioneer DV-610 DVD player from 2008 and a Sony BDP-S770 blu-ray player from 2011. The Pioneer sits on top of the Sony in my cabinet, so it's very easy to compare both PCM resolutions; Pioneer at 88.2 Khz and the Sony at 176.4 Khz. Both players were top-end when they were new.

Not sure if this is down to transport differences, but the Sony sounds a lot cleaner.

Agreed, the spacial aspect of the sound in particular is what seperates the sound above all else in my opinion too, if I close my eyes there is definately more dimentionality to the stereo mixes ( although I must admit the differences in multi channel are very difficult to seperate if I'm honest ). I can only put ths down to the 176.4Khz conversion retaining more of the original information derived from the DSD. I can liken it to the difference between CD and high bit rate ( 320kb+/sec ) MP3, the music still basically sounds the same but the MP3 has that something missing and is less enjoyable to listen to.

Post by Whitehall February 2, 2012 (30 of 74)
How about Sony's S-Master machines such as the AVD-C700ES? This is a single box receiver/player for home theater that plays SACDs as well as DVDs, CD, MP3, and FM.

I've read about their big boys such as the STR-DA7100ES but that requires a DSD stream over HDMI from a compliant transport like the DVP-S9100ES.

With some of the AVD series, the transport is built in and the amp modules use DSD directly.

I just installed it in a bedroom system with a pair of Sony SS-TL3s (stereo only) and it does sound pretty darn good although I haven't done much critical listening yet. It's rated at 120 wpc. Best part, I picked it up with remote and manual for $60 off the San Francisco Craigslist. The speakers were also Craigslist finds for $27(USD).

The S-Master program sounds pretty interesting. Are there audio-only S-Master amps from Sony and what is the highest wpc one can get with this technology? Which S-Master devices are "the pick of the litter?"

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