Considering adding DSD... please help

Randy Myers

Randy Myers

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I recently have gotten back into high end audio. I was very into audiophile equipment years ago, of course totally analog. Now 100% digital.

I have been learning this whole digital audio HD world over the previous month or so. Enjoying the hell out of it.

My McIntosh amp has a built in DAC, PCM 192 kHz.... I have purchased over 50 HD recordings since getting back into this crazy hobby. Four are DSD that JRiver is down scaling to 192 kHz...

I am wondering how much of a difference I will notice going to DSD. I know that many/most of what I read say there is little to no difference and some even claim that 192 kHz PCM is better. I have got to believe there has to be an improvement. How much?

Also, can DSD be added to my unit without great expense. The $10k units are just not in the cards at this point since I just got back into this and the initial outlay (and the $10k+ for my wife's new sewing machine; trade off).... So basically can I add DSD capabilities where it is worth it and can I do it with out a huge cash outlay?

I have been reading and posting on other forums but so far I believe that I get some of the best input here :).... and really believe this is the best home for me...
 
Randy Myers said:
I recently have gotten back into high end audio. I was very into audiophile equipment years ago, of course totally analog. Now 100% digital.

I have been learning this whole digital audio HD world over the previous month or so. Enjoying the hell out of it.

My McIntosh amp has a built in DAC, PCM 192 kHz.... I have purchased over 50 HD recordings since getting back into this crazy hobby. Four are DSD that JRiver is down scaling to 192 kHz...

I am wondering how much of a difference I will notice going to DSD. I know that many/most of what I read say there is little to no difference and some even claim that 192 kHz PCM is better. I have got to believe there has to be an improvement. How much?

Also, can DSD be added to my unit without great expense. The $10k units are just not in the cards at this point since I just got back into this and the initial outlay (and the $10k+ for my wife's new sewing machine; trade off).... So basically can I add DSD capabilities where it is worth it and can I do it with out a huge cash outlay?

I have been reading and posting on other forums but so far I believe that I get some of the best input here :).... and really believe this is the best home for me...
Click to expand...

Lampizator has just introduced their lowest priced DSD dac called the Euforia for @ $2,150.00 shipped. You might inquire with Fred at Lampizator USA, and see when he will be getting one of these in stock. That is a great price point for a company that does DSD very well.
 
I was reading something on their website. It is a tad confusing. It says something about if you already have a good PCM no problem it will interface with their DSD just fine. the exact way was not made clear though.

Is there any other worthy solutions a tad lower than this?
 
Randy,

Typically DSD is played from a computer via USB input. You could try a product like this ... http://www.musicdirect.com/p-237197-ifi-micro-idsd-dac.aspx?source=igodigital&

for $500 and have a return policy. I have not tried it but they have a big following.

They also have a Young DSD dac and that sounds great. Demo priced at $1300
AIFIMICROIDSD.jpg
 
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Randy Myers said:
I was reading something on their website. It is a tad confusing. It says something about if you already have a good PCM no problem it will interface with their DSD just fine. the exact way was not made clear though.

Is there any other worthy solutions a tad lower than this?
Click to expand...

There are several less expensive alternatives. It all depends on where you want to draw the line on quality. iFi and other units have inexpensive price points, and are suppose to be pretty decent. I myself have never tried them. I only mentioned the Lampi dac, as they have some of the best DSD playback available. And now they are introducing this new dac at a very good price point.......knowing the quality playback that they are capable of.
 
It appears as if these devices hook similarly to how I run the USB out straight to the Mc...only capable of PCM. So in something like this I run the USB out of my surface into the unit and l & R out to the inputs in the MC, or would it be better to run into the Coax input? Would this not then send the signal through the DAC built into the mac? Through the straight RCA inputs you would be by passing the one built into the Mc.

So I guess is it worth it... is it so much better than 192 kHz? I mean the DAC built into the McIntosh seems pretty darn good, but it tops out at 192 kHz.
 
Randy - check out the Ayre Codex DAC. I had it in my system (thanks to Jim Smith). It sounds great.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
That looks really cool.... :( don't think I will be able to swing an additional $1.5k-$2k at this point. So 192 kHz sounds pretty awesome to me right now. Now if Mr. Smith wants to allow me to add it to my system I would be glad to :skeptical:... and I would give all kinds of free reviews to :exciting:

Has anyone done really good side by side comparison? Is DSD that much better than 192 kHz? I have done side by side and HD recordings are much better than the standard CD (or ripped version)... from 96 kHz to 192 kHz is much harder to hear a difference for me....

BTW- is it ever possible to add DSD capabilities through a firmware upgrade? I read somewhere that they could add DSD to a DAC that only goes up to 192 kHz through a firmware upgrade. That just did not sound right to me. If so, I wonder if McIntosh would ever add a firmware upgrade for my system :)....
 
Randy - DSD is a technology created by Sony and Philips for creating/storing audio signals for SACD. DSD uses something called PDM - Pulse-Density Modulation encoding to store audio signals, for use on a SACD.

Dipping your toe into DSD can be a little messy because many DAC's that claim to do DSD, don't really do DSD natively. So in your example of "adding DSD capabilities through a firmware upgrade", smells an awful lot like this. You can still hear DSD, but to truly appreciate it and REALLY hear DSD, you need a DAC that handles DSD natively. That being said, new chips from AKM and others are seeing the ability to properly process PCM and DSD natively.

If you don't already have a large DSD collection, then the investment might not be worth it. Does native DSD sound better than PCM? To me, yes, DSD sounds more "analog", it has a fuller, meatier, more natural presentation, but at the end of the day, it still comes back to the original recording. A native quad DSD recording (very hard to find) can sound wonderful. But 99.9% of what you will probably listen to is PCM. I don't see Adele for example promoting her new album on DSD. :)

Focusing your energies on a great PCM DAC is probably going to bring a great ROI. I'm a huge fan of DSD, but I've been disillusioned by the near abandonment of the format by recording companies.

I have high hopes for a new format from Meridian called MQA, but so far, after a year of officially "launching", there has been nothing but broken promises. Let's just hope they are just finalizing things and we will finally see the launch of some great MQA encoded music. http://www.musicischanging.com/

If you're just curious about DSD, try to find a native DSD DAC and have at it!
 
FWIW, I own the Chord Qute EX, the iFi iDSD and the big lampi (before the DSD oly L4).

Ranking DSD playback is like this: Lampi>iDSD>Qute.

In 2014, i spent 7 hours with a pal comparing 4 of his Dacs with headphones, ie early Lampi Big7 ($10K, since refurbished to drive headphones), MSB Platinum stack with upgraded Galaxy 2 clocks (retail $35K +), PSA Direct Stream and Chord Hugo) The first 2 were close in DSD and were miles ahead of the last 2. The general prefernce was in the order I typed them in.

Its not that DSD is "better" than PCM, its that NATIVE playback of any format is "normally" the best. The strong exception to that (that I must explore further) is PCM upconverted to DSD256 in HQP (HQP playback) but even more so JRiver upconverted to Bughead Emperor playback software on an optimized server.
 
Thanks for the great input.

I only have four DSD recordings. The first two were bought before I understood what DSD was and did not realize that my DAC could not play them back natively. I did find that JRiver could down convert them so at least I could listen to them. They sound good in this manner. The other two I recently bought. Two Alan Parsons Project albums that the only HD recordings I could find were in DSD. Both sound fantastic down converted. Both were reviewed as two of the best examples of what DSD can be.

If I was going to explore DSD I would want it native. Otherwise I don't see it being an advantage. It also sounds like which ever method I go, if I do, would replace what is in my McIntosh. From everything I have found the implementation of PCM in the McIntosh is pretty top notch! Again, as a newbie in this HD digital world, I am pretty amazed at how good it sounds.
 
No, you can start by getting the iFi IDSD and playing back DSD natively thru that. The BB 1793 chip has an internal bypass to deal with DSD natively (so no internal conversion to PCM). It costs $500 retail and you can use it for BOTH PCM and DSD, though the Mc should be able to beat it for PCM to 129khz. the iDSD will be able to play up to PCM 768khz and DSD512, if you have transports that can supply this.
 
wisnon said:
No, you can start by getting the iFi IDSD and playing back DSD natively thru that. The BB 1793 chip has an internal bypass to deal with DSD natively (so no internal conversion to PCM). It costs $500 retail and you can use it for BOTH PCM and DSD, though the Mc should be able to beat it for PCM to 129khz. the iDSD will be able to play up to PCM 768khz and DSD512, if you have transports that can supply this.
Click to expand...

So something like this I would hook my USB into the iFi... and DSD would be converted there... but PCM could be by passed and decoded within the McIntosh instead? The digital would be coming from my Surface using JRiver.

Am I understanding this correctly?
 
The iDSD can act as a Didital to Digital converter, i think.

Cant recall, but if so, you input all via USB to iDSD and output analog to the Mc for DSD music and PCM via SpDIF to the Mc to convert to analog internally. Check the ifi site to make sure...
 
My guess that using Jriver to convert the DSD files to 192 and then going into your Mc will sound better than going natively DSD into the iFi and then into your Mc.

It would be an interesting experiment, but only if you could listen without costing you money.
 
the professor said:
My guess that using Jriver to convert the DSD files to 192 and then going into your Mc will sound better than going natively DSD into the iFi and then into your Mc.

It would be an interesting experiment, but only if you could listen without costing you money.
Click to expand...

Not sure, because the ifi is a very decent DSD converter...stomps over the Hugo, for example in DSD. Jriver is better at converting PCM to DSD than the other way. The only weakness is the ifi output section compared to the Mc, but you do avoid digital decimation to PCM and all the negatives that incurs.
 
It would be an interesting experiment. If I had one available I certainly would play with it but I don't believe it is worth spending $500 just to experiment :)...
 
It is more than an experiment. DSD done right cannot be beaten by PCM decimation, but of course indiv setup matters. You wont know until you try and if $500 is too much, there is the NANO iDSD from iFi for $189. It "only" does DSD 256 and is also a headphone amp/Dac but uses a different chipset.

If you are happy with your current setup, why change?
 
Learning, understanding this entire HD digital world. If I can improve at minimal costs then why not. If it is a great expense and worthy then I can plan ahead for it. I have been out of the audiophile world for many years and things have changed. Being a computer guy this is not a bad thing, however I have to get myself up to speed on this end of things.
 
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