I found this article on another newsgroup:

http://www.diamondcenter.net/digitalstress.html

Here are (to me) the most significant paragraphs:

"With the advent of Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording, it is now
possible to conclude that the negative effects I have stated above are due not
to the digital process per se but to the mode of achieving it, Pulse Code
Modulation (PCM). For DSD recordings do not have these negative effects.

"Although it was suggested, unfortunately the record industry did not
make analog backups of their digital (PCM) sessions. So now there is a (very
expensive) twenty year hiatus. Hence some SACDs (the CD format for DSD) are
being released which have gone through the PCM process and are as negative as
regular CDs."

I have two questions:

I wonder whether it is possible to find pure DSD recordings, and how to
recognize them.

Also, are DSD CDs -- as opposed to DSD SACDs -- as likely to be free of the
negative artifacts Diamond cites?

Thanks.

Why bother dealing with this nonsense! There's no scientific evidence
for anything he purports to prove.

Kal

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 19:02:33 GMT, (Farrell8882)
wrote:

I found this article on another newsgroup:

http://www.diamondcenter.net/digitalstress.html

Here are (to me) the most significant paragraphs:

"With the advent of Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording, it is now
possible to conclude that the negative effects I have stated above are due not
to the digital process per se but to the mode of achieving it, Pulse Code
Modulation (PCM). For DSD recordings do not have these negative effects.

"Although it was suggested, unfortunately the record industry did not
make analog backups of their digital (PCM) sessions. So now there is a (very
expensive) twenty year hiatus. Hence some SACDs (the CD format for DSD) are
being released which have gone through the PCM process and are as negative as
regular CDs."

I have two questions:

I wonder whether it is possible to find pure DSD recordings, and how to
recognize them.

Also, are DSD CDs -- as opposed to DSD SACDs -- as likely to be free of the
negative artifacts Diamond cites?

Thanks.

Kalman Rubinson
Why bother dealing with this nonsense! There's no scientific evidence
for anything he purports to prove.


But wait - he's a doctor so he has science on his side, doesn't he?

Unfortunately a lot of people have experienced discomfort listening to CDs,
especially early ones on early equipment and his theories were as good as any
others back in the 1980s. Now we know a lot more about jitter and digital
recording, but...maybe he's on to something ;-)
Regards,
Mike

On 23 Jan 2004 22:49:31 GMT, (Mkuller) wrote:

Kalman Rubinson
Why bother dealing with this nonsense! There's no scientific evidence
for anything he purports to prove.


But wait - he's a doctor so he has science on his side, doesn't he?

Not necessarily. Parading lists of degrees means only that he should
know better. I have read his stuff and the experimental data to back
it is never offered.

Unfortunately a lot of people have experienced discomfort listening to CDs,
especially early ones on early equipment and his theories were as good as any
others back in the 1980s. Now we know a lot more about jitter and digital
recording, but...maybe he's on to something ;-)

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Kal (teacher of doctors)

Kalman Rubinson wrote:



On 23 Jan 2004 22:49:31 GMT, (Mkuller) wrote:

Kalman Rubinson
Why bother dealing with this nonsense! There's no scientific evidence
for anything he purports to prove.


But wait - he's a doctor so he has science on his side, doesn't he?

Not necessarily. Parading lists of degrees means only that he should
know better. I have read his stuff and the experimental data to back
it is never offered.

Unfortunately a lot of people have experienced discomfort listening to CDs,
especially early ones on early equipment and his theories were as good as
any
others back in the 1980s. Now we know a lot more about jitter and digital
recording, but...maybe he's on to something ;-)

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Kal (teacher of doctors)

I once read a wonderful article in a skeptics magazine that mathematically
showsd that a stopped clock was actually more accurate than one which was off
by 20 minutes.

On 23 Jan 2004 22:49:31 GMT, (Mkuller) wrote:

Kalman Rubinson
Why bother dealing with this nonsense! There's no scientific evidence
for anything he purports to prove.

But wait - he's a doctor so he has science on his side, doesn't he?

So did Harold Shipman............

Qualifications are no indicator of the scientific accuracy of an
argument.

Unfortunately a lot of people have experienced discomfort listening to CDs,
especially early ones on early equipment and his theories were as good as any
others back in the 1980s.

Which is where they should have stayed. Basically, he's talking
rubbish which has no basis in reliable and repeatable observations.

Now we know a lot more about jitter and digital
recording, but...maybe he's on to something ;-)

And, maybe he's not. I pick the latter.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Mkuller" wrote in message
...
Kalman Rubinson
Why bother dealing with this nonsense! There's no scientific evidence
for anything he purports to prove.


But wait - he's a doctor so he has science on his side, doesn't he?

Unfortunately a lot of people have experienced discomfort listening to
CDs,
especially early ones on early equipment and his theories were as good as
any
others back in the 1980s. Now we know a lot more about jitter and digital
recording,

It was all known back then, just not always implemented. As for the
"discomfort"
of CD's, I've had a lot more discomfort from the noise and poor fidelity of
LPs.

- Gary Rosen

"Farrell8882" wrote in message
news:ddeQb.104704$Rc4.713016@attbi_s54...
I found this article on another newsgroup:

http://www.diamondcenter.net/digitalstress.html

Here are (to me) the most significant paragraphs:

"With the advent of Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording, it is
now
possible to conclude that the negative effects I have stated above are due
not
to the digital process per se but to the mode of achieving it, Pulse Code
Modulation (PCM). For DSD recordings do not have these negative effects.

"Although it was suggested, unfortunately the record industry did
not
make analog backups of their digital (PCM) sessions. So now there is a
(very
expensive) twenty year hiatus. Hence some SACDs (the CD format for DSD)
are
being released which have gone through the PCM process and are as negative
as
regular CDs."

I have two questions:

I wonder whether it is possible to find pure DSD recordings, and how to
recognize them.


Look carefully at the recording notes on the back of the SACD's. Most
SACD's that were recorded in DSD mention this fact somewhere on the back
cover. Not there? Assume it is high bit rate, high res pcm...probably
96/20 or better...most recently 192/24.

Also, are DSD CDs -- as opposed to DSD SACDs -- as likely to be free of
the
negative artifacts Diamond cites?

In my experience most irritation is as a result of the filters used in
decoding...thus SACD avoids the problem at the consumer level. A lot
depends on what equipment/how carefully the transfer from PCM to SACD was
done at the mastering level.

1. Any SACD which was mastered from analog source material will be fine.
Moreover, you can usually tell whether a recording was made using pure DSD
from the label. You should be aware, though, that a number of new SACD's
which have been released come from PCM masters. For example, all of the new
Deutsche Grammophon releases were originally recorded in PCM format,
although the originals were originally 24/48 or 24/96. The DG releases
which were mastered in 24/96 sound, at least to me, every bit as good as
pure DSD recordings.

2. CD's mastered from DSD originals are supposed to be better than CD's
mastered from PCM originals.
"Farrell8882" wrote in message
news:ddeQb.104704$Rc4.713016@attbi_s54...
I found this article on another newsgroup:

http://www.diamondcenter.net/digitalstress.html

Here are (to me) the most significant paragraphs:

"With the advent of Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording, it is
now
possible to conclude that the negative effects I have stated above are due
not
to the digital process per se but to the mode of achieving it, Pulse Code
Modulation (PCM). For DSD recordings do not have these negative effects.

"Although it was suggested, unfortunately the record industry did
not
make analog backups of their digital (PCM) sessions. So now there is a
(very
expensive) twenty year hiatus. Hence some SACDs (the CD format for DSD)
are
being released which have gone through the PCM process and are as negative
as
regular CDs."

I have two questions:

I wonder whether it is possible to find pure DSD recordings, and how to
recognize them.

Also, are DSD CDs -- as opposed to DSD SACDs -- as likely to be free of
the
negative artifacts Diamond cites?

Thanks.

I'm skeptical. I tend to think that PCM will get a lot of negative press
simply because it came around during the birth of digital music, and was
the major process used for digital music.If it was bad, there was
nothing out there that was better. PCD was the process used with all
those bad DA converters, limited sampling etc. One of PCM's finest
examples, in CD format, is JVC's XRCD format. Of course, it's still
limited by 44.1/16. And how many people even know about XRCD? It's a
niche market for the soon
to be obsoleted CD format. SACD has arrived and it has the benefit of
learning from all the mistakes made in the digital mastering processes.
So has DVD audio, a PCM processs. The only fair comparison would be to
compare DVD audio to SACD, because they both premiered around the same
time and stand to benefit from all that we have learned about the
analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog process of digital audio.

Here's a link to a site comparing DVD-Audio to SACD using a square wave.
Look at how the CD foramt using PCM, jsut falls apart trying to
reproduce the wave, but DVD audio, also using PCM reproduces the square
wave quite admirably;

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml

Food for thought

CD

Farrell8882 wrote:
I found this article on another newsgroup:

http://www.diamondcenter.net/digitalstress.html

Here are (to me) the most significant paragraphs:

"With the advent of Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording, it is now
possible to conclude that the negative effects I have stated above are due not
to the digital process per se but to the mode of achieving it, Pulse Code
Modulation (PCM). For DSD recordings do not have these negative effects.

"Although it was suggested, unfortunately the record industry did not
make analog backups of their digital (PCM) sessions. So now there is a (very
expensive) twenty year hiatus. Hence some SACDs (the CD format for DSD) are
being released which have gone through the PCM process and are as negative as
regular CDs."

I have two questions:

I wonder whether it is possible to find pure DSD recordings, and how to
recognize them.

Also, are DSD CDs -- as opposed to DSD SACDs -- as likely to be free of the
negative artifacts Diamond cites?

Thanks.

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:43:33 GMT, Codifus
wrote:

I'm skeptical. I tend to think that PCM will get a lot of negative press
simply because it came around during the birth of digital music, and was
the major process used for digital music.If it was bad, there was
nothing out there that was better. PCD was the process used with all
those bad DA converters, limited sampling etc. One of PCM's finest
examples, in CD format, is JVC's XRCD format. Of course, it's still
limited by 44.1/16. And how many people even know about XRCD? It's a
niche market for the soon
to be obsoleted CD format. SACD has arrived and it has the benefit of
learning from all the mistakes made in the digital mastering processes.

Unfortunately, it did *not* learn, as 'pure' DSD has a fatal technical
flaw. As a result, all modern SACDs are made either from conventional
'hi-res' PCM masters, or from so-called DSD-Wide, which is merely a
hybrid form of PCM. Hence, SACD is basically just a marketing
exercise, since it is always derived from some form of hi-res PCM, aka
DVD-A.

So has DVD audio, a PCM processs. The only fair comparison would be to
compare DVD audio to SACD, because they both premiered around the same
time and stand to benefit from all that we have learned about the
analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog process of digital audio.

Well, since no one has yet shown absolute proof that either of those
'hi res' formats sounds different from basic 16/44 CD, that could be a
little difficult........................

Here's a link to a site comparing DVD-Audio to SACD using a square wave.
Look at how the CD foramt using PCM, jsut falls apart trying to
reproduce the wave, but DVD audio, also using PCM reproduces the square
wave quite admirably;

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml

What does this prove, other than that CD has a restricted bandwidth of
22kHz, which we already knew?
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:06:09 GMT, (Stewart Pinkerton)
wrote:

Unfortunately, it did *not* learn, as 'pure' DSD has a fatal technical
flaw.

I guess that - again - you mean the peculiar overloading behavior of the
modulator when theorically perfect dither is used? This point is very easy
to solve: don't use perfect, but optimal dither. That's what every
hardware/firmware company associated with DSD does...

IMO 1-bit DSD has other significant shorcomings for professionnal
applications - try to design equalizers of filters running on pure DSD
streams w/o LPCM or DSD-Wide parallel index guides, for instance - hence
DSD-Wide.

As a result, all modern SACDs are made either from conventional
'hi-res' PCM masters, or from so-called DSD-Wide, which is merely a
hybrid form of PCM.

That's totally incorrect.

A large number of "purist" recordings are made direct to 1-bit DSD. As they
don't need to be manipulated in the digital domain, DSD's limitations aren't
a problem. Furthermore, most recent DSD recordings are done using DSD-Wide,
not LPCM.

Just have a look at what a typical etailer offers for sale. For instance
Acoustic Sounds lists 112 pure SACD discs, from a number of labels such as
DMP, Telarc, Bis, Sony and others.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/dsd.cfm?section=sacd

It's only when it comes to back catalogue titles, with ageing or long
disappeared analog masters, that LPCM is used.

For instance, the DSD editions of Roxy Music's classic albums are derived
from the sole remaining digital master, in Sony PCM 1630 format if I do
remeber correctly - the original Ampex MT tapes have long been baked,
transferred, and gone to the great bin in the skies.

Getting back to DSD-Wide, it's not "merely a hybrid form of PCM". It's a
fully fledged Delta Sigma system which decimates very gracefully to DSD or
PCM, hence it growing success at recording labels - for instance, *all*
majors use DSD-Wide, except of course Warner Bros companies who are still
trying to push DVD-A.

Hence, SACD is basically just a marketing
exercise, since it is always derived from some form of hi-res PCM, aka
DVD-A.

As demonstrated, this is hogwash. DSD and DVD-A have nothing in common,
except the physical size of their consumer media... Oh, and DVD-A is a
dysmal failure, while DSD is doing quite well as a high end format.

As demonstrated, this is hogwash. DSD and DVD-A have nothing in common,
except the physical size of their consumer media... Oh, and DVD-A is a
dysmal failure, while DSD is doing quite well as a high end format.

The thing is that apart from the emotions that usually go with the DVD-A vs
SACD argument I have not seen a single one that is in favor of SACD and is
really scientifically based. On the contrary there are a number of
convicning articles out there claimign that DVD-A is better and DSD is
flawed as Stewart Pinkerton claims. I posted a link sometime ago to one

http://www.sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm

and here is another

http://www.minnetonkaaudio.com/pdfs/...le%20paper.pdf

The authors are quite reputable in my opinion. Now before spending money on
some top of the line SACD or DVD-A player I would like to collect as much
information as possible and I have not found anything yet to make me buy a
SACD player. If threre is some I will be happy to learn more, honestly.

Dimiter

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 09:56:50 GMT, "Dimiter Petsev"
wrote:

The authors are quite reputable in my opinion. Now before spending money on
some top of the line SACD or DVD-A player I would like to collect as much
information as possible and I have not found anything yet to make me buy a
SACD player. If threre is some I will be happy to learn more, honestly.

One factor you might consider is program content. At the moment,
there is easily 10x the program material that interests me on SACD
compared with DVD-A. Others may differ in their tastes but that, to
me, outweighs any and all of the technical issues.

Kal

I believed that all the posts started from "Is the war over yet? DVD-A
vs. SACD"

Why on earth everyone talking about the technology difference between
DVD-A and SACD?

You know, whether a product will be success or not, majority is not
because it is better than all the other competitors, it is because of the
marketing skills!

Take McDonald as an example, I refuse to accept that they have the best
hamburger in the world (I can make hamburger ten times better than them),
or the best french fries in the world. But why they are the most success
fast food chain in the world? Marketing! The Ronald McDonald clown is
almost as famous as Santa Claus...

So to determine or to guess which format will win the war, we need to go
deep into their marketing skills rather than their sonic difference.

Tell me why can CD take over the dominance place of LP 20 years ago? Is
it because CD is so much better than LP? No! Everything is marketing my
friends, and if you can't accept it, I'm afraid you will be very
disappointed!

So unless somebody start talking about how DVD-A and SACD promote their
products, I think all other discussion will be pointless, forgive me to
say that!

Just think of that, who are the "main stream" music CD buyers? Some
audiophile tech. geeks like all of you here reading RAHE, or someone
don't know anything (or know very little) about sonic? And what can drive
them to buy?

Lawrence Leung

"Dimiter Petsev" wrote in message
news:CHLRb.169152$I06.1679875@attbi_s01...
As demonstrated, this is hogwash. DSD and DVD-A have nothing in common,
except the physical size of their consumer media... Oh, and DVD-A is a
dysmal failure, while DSD is doing quite well as a high end format.

The thing is that apart from the emotions that usually go with the DVD-A
vs
SACD argument I have not seen a single one that is in favor of SACD and is
really scientifically based. On the contrary there are a number of
convicning articles out there claimign that DVD-A is better and DSD is
flawed as Stewart Pinkerton claims. I posted a link sometime ago to one

http://www.sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm

and here is another


http://www.minnetonkaaudio.com/pdfs/...le%20paper.pdf

The authors are quite reputable in my opinion. Now before spending money
on
some top of the line SACD or DVD-A player I would like to collect as much
information as possible and I have not found anything yet to make me buy a
SACD player. If threre is some I will be happy to learn more, honestly.

Dimiter


You've just heard some here. Peruse the threads. And the final arbiter is
in the listening.

In all honesty, SACD in my system simply sounds more natural. I can suspend
belief and listen to an orchestral recording like I am at a concert. I've
recorded classical, jazz, and folk all my life, and I can tell you that SACD
gets you closer to the sound of acoustic instruments in acoustic space.
Their is more "depth" to the sound, less "edge", and subtler dynamics. Why,
exactly, I can't tell you. But as far as I am concerned noise in the
ultrasonic range
has no real relevance to music.

Some of the biggest difference is in the bass, which only indirectly has to
do with high frequencies. Accoustic bass instruments simply sound far more
natural in SACD..more dynamic, and with more realistic transients and
seemingly coming from a deeper silence. That is certainly true vs.
conventional cd, and based on the DVD-A's I have/the playing equipment (not
top line) the only difference I hear between CD and DVD-A is a smoother top
end. I am trying to stay open on DVD-A given my less than optimal
equipment, but what SONY gets out of its least expensive ES SACD players is
very impressive vs what I've heard so far from comparably priced DVD-A
players. And most recently even a very expensive DVD-A player.

So if you must have specs to feel comfortable, keep searching. But I'd
suggest you also listen. Here's a starter. The Columbia Bruno Walter
Beethoven 5th SACD (SS 6506) vs. the CD version (MK 40221). And if you can,
get the original vinyl version that the SACD duplicates.

What you will find is that the SACD sounds "realer", more like the "vinyl"
but with none of that medium's high or low frequency limitations. I had the
vinyl in the '60's when it first came out, and it wasn't until the '70's
that I had a turntable/cartridge combo that could play this recording
without mistracking/screeching high frequencies. The CD solved that
problem, and gave deeper bass as well so it was added to my collection. Now
the SACD. The performance/mix is identical on all three. Compared to the
CD the SACD has more depth, it is much easier to follow the plucked strings
in the basses and cellos, the strings are sweeter and sound like strings
(the CD has an "edge" or glare to the strings even though it is not a
dynamic flaw like on the vinyl).

Now, listen to any DVD-A you want. What you should be listening for is this
same sense of "naturalness" in the bass and in the strings...there should be
no edge, no "etch", no flatness to the sound. So far I haven't heard it.

When I compare two identical recordings (Sing Live, Jazz, and 2 Doors Away
from the Sun, Rock) I hear the same differences.

Are these perfect comparisons? No. Do others hear similar things. Yes,
very many do, and that is why they end up being SACD advocates. The people
who prefer DVD-A tend to be folk raised on rock and cd....so if you are one
of them you may prefer it. But for sound, to this point my ears tell me it
is SACD.

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 09:56:50 GMT, "Dimiter Petsev"
wrote:

As demonstrated, this is hogwash. DSD and DVD-A have nothing in common,
except the physical size of their consumer media... Oh, and DVD-A is a
dysmal failure, while DSD is doing quite well as a high end format.

The thing is that apart from the emotions that usually go with the DVD-A vs
SACD argument I have not seen a single one that is in favor of SACD and is
really scientifically based. On the contrary there are a number of
convicning articles out there claimign that DVD-A is better and DSD is
flawed as Stewart Pinkerton claims. I posted a link sometime ago to one

http://www.sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm

and here is another

http://www.minnetonkaaudio.com/pdfs/...le%20paper.pdf

The authors are quite reputable in my opinion. Now before spending money on
some top of the line SACD or DVD-A player I would like to collect as much
information as possible and I have not found anything yet to make me buy a
SACD player. If threre is some I will be happy to learn more, honestly.

Luckily, the trend is to 'universal' players which handle all formats
in an exemplary manner, prime examples being the Pioneer DV-868 (Elite
DV-59 in the US) and the Denon 2900. Note that neither of these
suffers either the markup or the technical incompetence of the
so-called 'high end' brands....................
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 09:56:50 GMT, "Dimiter Petsev" wrote:

The thing is that apart from the emotions that usually go with the DVD-A vs
SACD argument I have not seen a single one that is in favor of SACD and is
really scientifically based.

Then you haven't done your homework. Remember: Google groups is your friend!

On the contrary there are a number of
convicning articles out there claimign that DVD-A is better and DSD is
flawed as Stewart Pinkerton claims. I posted a link sometime ago to one

http://www.sound.westhost.com/cd-sacd-dvda.htm

Whih is full of factual errors and has already been debunked.

and here is another

http://www.minnetonkaaudio.com/pdfs/...le%20paper.pdf

Yes, the corrected and amended version of the infamous Lip****z and
Vanderkooy paper. Have you read it? If no, please do so at your earliest
convenience. If yes, jump to "Why Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is the best
choice as a Digital Audio Format", Derk Reefman and Peter Nuijten, AES110,
preprint 5396 and get Sony/Philips' position...

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:06:09 GMT, (Stewart Pinkerton)
wrote:

Unfortunately, it did *not* learn, as 'pure' DSD has a fatal technical
flaw.

I guess that - again - you mean the peculiar overloading behavior of the
modulator when perfect dither is used? This point is very easy to solve:
don't use perfect, but optimal dither. That's what every hardware/firmware
company associated with DSD does...

IMO 1-bit DSD has other significant shortcomings for professional
applications - try to design equalizers of filters running on pure DSD
streams w/o LPCM or DSD-Wide parallel index guides, for instance - hence
DSD-Wide.

As a result, all modern SACDs are made either from conventional
'hi-res' PCM masters, or from so-called DSD-Wide, which is merely a
hybrid form of PCM.

That's totally incorrect.

A large number of "purist" recordings are made direct to 1-bit DSD. As they
don't need to be manipulated in the digital domain, DSD's limitations aren't
a problem. Furthermore, most recent DSD recordings are done using DSD-Wide,
not LPCM.

Just have a look at what a typical etailer offers for sale. For instance
Acoustic Sounds lists 112 pure SACD discs, from a number of labels such as
DMP, Telarc, Bis, Sony and others.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/dsd.cfm?section=sacd

It's only when it comes to back catalog titles, with ageing or long
disappeared analog masters, that LPCM is used.

For instance, the DSD editions of Roxy Music's classic albums are derived
from the sole remaining digital master, in Sony PCM 1630 format if I do
remember correctly - the original Ampex MT tapes have long been baked,
transferred, and gone to the great bin in the skies.

Getting back to DSD-Wide, it's not "merely a hybrid form of PCM". It's a
fully fledged Delta Sigma system which decimates very gracefully to DSD or
PCM, hence it growing success at recording labels - for instance, *all*
majors use DSD-Wide, except of course Warner Bros companies who are still
trying to push DVD-A.

Hence, SACD is basically just a marketing
exercise, since it is always derived from some form of hi-res PCM, aka
DVD-A.

As demonstrated, this is hogwash. DSD and DVD-A have nothing in common,
except the physical size of their consumer media... Oh, and DVD-A is a
dismal failure, while DSD is doing quite well as a high end format.

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
news:RkVQb.119549$nt4.516264@attbi_s51...
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:43:33 GMT, Codifus
wrote:

snip, not relevant to below

Here's a link to a site comparing DVD-Audio to SACD using a square wave.
Look at how the CD foramt using PCM, jsut falls apart trying to
reproduce the wave, but DVD audio, also using PCM reproduces the square
wave quite admirably;

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml

What does this prove, other than that CD has a restricted bandwidth of
22kHz, which we already knew?

Think about it a minute, Stewart. It shows that DSD/SACD have performance
essentially equal to 192/24 pcm. Yet the only place you can find 192/24 pcm
is on the stereo mix of a few DVD-A's. All DVD-A surround and most front
channels are recorded in 96/24 or even 48/24, which the square waves show
as inferior (essentially a matter of bandwidth). So SACD gives you five
channels of near-perfect sound reproduction; DVD-A gives you five channels
of sound reproduction ranging from cd quality to somewhat better than cd
quality (but not as good as SACD or 192/24, the "unobtainium" DVD-A signal.

Which is the superior commercial product?

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:23:44 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

It shows that DSD/SACD have performance essentially equal to 192/24 pcm.

It's not above 10 KHz or so, where the effective resolution goes down the
drain because of the aggressive noise shaping used.

SACD is a very nice medium, but it's *not* superior to HR PCM in a number of
aspects.

BTW, there are no currently available DA or AD converters with more than 21
bits of effective (ie. monotonic et al.) resolution, and no studio equipment
able to capture HF sounds above 50 KHz at best with a decent SN ratio - of
course, full electronic music is another story.

So, IMO, 24/96 or DSD are more than adequate today as well as for the
foreseeable future. And, yes, I do prefer DSD as a consumer delivery medium
- as well as DSD Wide at the studio level.

Fran??ois Yves Le Gal wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:23:44 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

It shows that DSD/SACD have performance essentially equal to 192/24 pcm.

It's not above 10 KHz or so, where the effective resolution goes down the
drain because of the aggressive noise shaping used.

SACD is a very nice medium, but it's *not* superior to HR PCM in a number of
aspects.

Which IIRC is also the reasoning DG used in rejecting DSD in favor of PCM as its
archiving medium.



--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

"Fran=C3=A7ois Yves Le Gal" wrote:
lectronic music is another story.
=

So, IMO, 24/96 or DSD are more than adequate today as well as for the
foreseeable future. And, yes, I do prefer DSD as a consumer delivery me=
dium
- as well as DSD Wide at the studio level.

Why do you prefer DSD as a consumer delivery medium? I have no use for it=

because
- if the master is high res PCM I don't get master quality but a filtered=

version. Same goes for any source with information that is smeared by t=
he
noise shaping.
- Can't do digital room correction unless I convert back to PCM again.

Where's the beef? Cheaper DA converters?

Given that surround sound is usually associated with Dolby surround or
DTSand those formats do an MP3 type lossy compression to the audio
signal, does it really matter that SACD provides better quality of an
inferior medium? DVD-A seems to concentrate on producing the best audio
where it counts; stereo. But then if 192/24 PCM is unobtainable, then I
guess DVD-A is done. It's offering no advantage compared to SACD, and
it's already losing the battle.

CD

Harry Lavo wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
news:RkVQb.119549$nt4.516264@attbi_s51...

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:43:33 GMT, Codifus
wrote:


snip, not relevant to below


Here's a link to a site comparing DVD-Audio to SACD using a square wave.
Look at how the CD foramt using PCM, jsut falls apart trying to
reproduce the wave, but DVD audio, also using PCM reproduces the square
wave quite admirably;

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml

What does this prove, other than that CD has a restricted bandwidth of
22kHz, which we already knew?


Think about it a minute, Stewart. It shows that DSD/SACD have performance
essentially equal to 192/24 pcm. Yet the only place you can find 192/24 pcm
is on the stereo mix of a few DVD-A's. All DVD-A surround and most front
channels are recorded in 96/24 or even 48/24, which the square waves show
as inferior (essentially a matter of bandwidth). So SACD gives you five
channels of near-perfect sound reproduction; DVD-A gives you five channels
of sound reproduction ranging from cd quality to somewhat better than cd
quality (but not as good as SACD or 192/24, the "unobtainium" DVD-A signal.

Which is the superior commercial product?

"Codifus" wrote in message
...
Given that surround sound is usually associated with Dolby surround or
DTSand those formats do an MP3 type lossy compression to the audio
signal, does it really matter that SACD provides better quality of an
inferior medium? DVD-A seems to concentrate on producing the best audio
where it counts; stereo. But then if 192/24 PCM is unobtainable, then I
guess DVD-A is done. It's offering no advantage compared to SACD, and
it's already losing the battle.

Surround Sound is only associated with Dolby or DTS when it is used on DVD's
for movies. The production of SACD and DVD-A surround music is not
associated with lossy compression. It's quite the contrary.

"Codifus" wrote in message
...
Given that surround sound is usually associated with Dolby surround or
DTSand those formats do an MP3 type lossy compression to the audio
signal, does it really matter that SACD provides better quality of an
inferior medium? DVD-A seems to concentrate on producing the best audio
where it counts; stereo. But then if 192/24 PCM is unobtainable, then I
guess DVD-A is done. It's offering no advantage compared to SACD, and
it's already losing the battle.

CD


I try to keep an open mind on DVD-A (I own eight at this point) and
therefore monitor (and sometimes participate in) the DVD-A forum on
AudioAsylum. The lack of 192/24 stereo on most DVD-A's is one of their
chief gripes (and these are DVD-A afficionados). In fact, apparently a good
many DVD-A's don't even include a stereo mix, but instead rely on an
automatic mix-down from multichannel by the DVD-A machine itself, which
since there are no 'standards' for multichannel mixes I gather is a pretty
hit-or-miss proposition.

snip, not relevant

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:23:44 GMT, "Harry Lavo"
wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
news:RkVQb.119549$nt4.516264@attbi_s51...
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:43:33 GMT, Codifus
wrote:

snip, not relevant to below

Here's a link to a site comparing DVD-Audio to SACD using a square wave.
Look at how the CD foramt using PCM, jsut falls apart trying to
reproduce the wave, but DVD audio, also using PCM reproduces the square
wave quite admirably;

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml

What does this prove, other than that CD has a restricted bandwidth of
22kHz, which we already knew?

Think about it a minute, Stewart. It shows that DSD/SACD have performance
essentially equal to 192/24 pcm.

In mere bandwidth terms, we already knew that. Did you miss the 'dirty
little secret' of DSD - the *horrific* RF noise and timing uncertainty
revealed by Anderson's comparison?

Yet the only place you can find 192/24 pcm
is on the stereo mix of a few DVD-A's.

So what? What on *earth* has the ability of a system to reproduce
signals from 30kHz upwards to do with *audio*? Remember, despite the
horrifically sloppy text, square waves do not *have* 2nd harmonic
content, only 3rd, 5th, 7th etc.

All DVD-A surround and most front
channels are recorded in 96/24 or even 48/24, which the square waves show
as inferior (essentially a matter of bandwidth).

And of course, the inability of CD to produce 30kHz is hardly relevant
to humans.

So SACD gives you five
channels of near-perfect sound reproduction; DVD-A gives you five channels
of sound reproduction ranging from cd quality to somewhat better than cd
quality (but not as good as SACD or 192/24, the "unobtainium" DVD-A signal.

Which is the superior commercial product?

The one which sells more, but this has nothing to do with the
irrelevance of 30kHz signals to humans. There is as yet *zero* proof
that SACD and 24/192 DVD-A sound audibly difgferent from 16/44, so
this is a mere numbers game, so beloved of marketing men. Of course,
Anderson merely pointed out that. as always, Sony have to cheat when
comparisons are made, because they *know* that their product is
fundamentally inferior.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Well, to me, it says that DVD-A, at 192/24, is better than SACD at
reproducing a square wave. If it can do that better, chances are, it can
reproduce the somewhat less complicated digital audio waveforms of music
better as well.

But, as someone mentioned, SACD has taken off. That's what I've observed
as well. Sony and Philips, well, mostly Sony, are the better marketing
machine. Sony has learned well from it betamax loss. The CD was a home
run. But then, what else was there competeing against it. Fast forward
to now. SACD is at 2nd base going on 3rd, and DVD-A seems to be still at
bat. Shame, I would have wanted DVD-A to win. I comfort myself in seeing
that SACD is better than DVD-A at 96/24 but not quite up to DVD-A at
192/24, as that link I posted seems to show.

CD

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:43:33 GMT, Codifus
wrote:


I'm skeptical. I tend to think that PCM will get a lot of negative press
simply because it came around during the birth of digital music, and was
the major process used for digital music.If it was bad, there was
nothing out there that was better. PCD was the process used with all
those bad DA converters, limited sampling etc. One of PCM's finest
examples, in CD format, is JVC's XRCD format. Of course, it's still
limited by 44.1/16. And how many people even know about XRCD? It's a
niche market for the soon
to be obsoleted CD format. SACD has arrived and it has the benefit of
learning from all the mistakes made in the digital mastering processes.


Unfortunately, it did *not* learn, as 'pure' DSD has a fatal technical
flaw. As a result, all modern SACDs are made either from conventional
'hi-res' PCM masters, or from so-called DSD-Wide, which is merely a
hybrid form of PCM. Hence, SACD is basically just a marketing
exercise, since it is always derived from some form of hi-res PCM, aka
DVD-A.


So has DVD audio, a PCM processs. The only fair comparison would be to
compare DVD audio to SACD, because they both premiered around the same
time and stand to benefit from all that we have learned about the
analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog process of digital audio.


Well, since no one has yet shown absolute proof that either of those
'hi res' formats sounds different from basic 16/44 CD, that could be a
little difficult........................


Here's a link to a site comparing DVD-Audio to SACD using a square wave.
Look at how the CD foramt using PCM, jsut falls apart trying to
reproduce the wave, but DVD audio, also using PCM reproduces the square
wave quite admirably;

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml


What does this prove, other than that CD has a restricted bandwidth of
22kHz, which we already knew?