That rule about not allowing posting to old threads is really retarded.
That said, I think everyone in that thread is right...crazy, but true. DSD sucks as a form of studio recording where there will be any mixing or manipulation of the data afterwards. So if you want to do a DSD recording, you should really use 2 inch tape at this point and do all the mixing in analog. The up side is that you can take your tape master and convert it to DSD with great results. O.k., so after filtering there's nothing actually above 22khz like it was advertised. So what. Most speakers and amps aren't able to produce above that range or will start misbehaving. The newest amps are starting to go all the way up to 100khz with a linear response, but most speakers are far from that. My NHT ST4's go up to 22khz, which I guess is perfect for SACD. And for material that was recorded and mixed to PCM to start with, the DSD version of that will be pretty much identical to what they heard in the studio (minus the ultrasonics). It's hard for me to complain about that. Even the Burr Brown DACs in my Pioneer DV-655A don't sound as good with the original 24bit studio masters compared to DSD converted ones...with all channels on and set to large, assuming there is no conversion to 8 bit Wide DSD going on in the Sony chip (bass management is a bad idea anyway, get full range speakers). So even those DACs aren't nearly as good as the studio ones. And there are now lots of Hybrid SACDs coming out that are certain to work well even on old CD players. I don't want to buy one DVD-A version and one CD version of an album, then have to worry about the quality of my PCM DACs. And those Dual Discs aren't even certain to work on every player. So DSD is still the better sounding format for originally analog recordings and a more consistent format for distributing PCM recordings. What was all the fuss again? Oh, that multitrack recording, mixing, and processing of DSD is either bad or PCM in cognito. What we need is better tracing of a SACD's pedigree. With the new Bjork remasters that are coming out from Universal, will they be mastering the stereo SACD layer directly from the original tapes: either the multitrack tape remixed in analog live or the downmix master tapes? Because if they're just transferring it all to Pro Tools first, then the only benefit you're getting in the Hybrid SACD over DVD-A is studio quality home D/A conversion mimicry (not necessarily a bad thing) and bulletproof backwards compatibility. But will we even be told what the mastering process was? With Nora Jones we only get a studio quality D/A conversion of a 16 bit Red Book SACD stereo layer at home. If home PCM DACs keep improving and studios use DCS equipment (which is what Universal uses) then maybe DVD-A will eventually be a great solution when it comes to multichannel remixes, even of older analog multitrack material...since it's all remixed to 5.1 in Pro Tools for these new releases, anyway. Then again, if consumer DACs still stay universally far below studio quality, then conceivably you could give us at home DCS quality by using such D/A converters to feed DSD A/D converters. That might be alright...near DCS PCM sound from a $100 SACD Apex.
