How important is DSD compatibility when buying a new DAC/Streamer?

How important is DSD compatibility when buying a new DAC/Streamer?

  • [B]Very important.[/B] I want my DAC to handle DSD natively.

    Votes: 32 53.3%
  • [B]Important.[/B] I want my DAC to be fully compatible with DSD, but I'm not concerned about how it

    Votes: 5 8.3%
  • [B]Somewhat important.[/B] I don't have a huge DSD collection, so I won't sacrifice PCM quality for

    Votes: 9 15.0%
  • [B]Not Important At All.[/B] I only have PCM files. If I buy any DSD files, I can just convert the

    Votes: 14 23.3%

  • Total voters
    60

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How important is DSD compatibility when buying a new DAC/Streamer?
 
How do you like your MiniDSP with Dirac? I was at a friends house this weekend and he uses one. Very cool product.
 
Great product, very reasonably priced. Dirac is the best DRC I've used yet, although Lyngdorf room perfect is right up there as well. I like the Dirac product because it lets you see the FR curve and customize it. I use it with PCM sources and my milennia NSEQ for DSD and vinyl. I know, weird but I like to keep the DSD in the analog realm after the DAC and not convert to PCM.
 
I don't know. Given that I have a nice PCM DAC and an entry level Octa DSD512 DAC, I'm inclined to sit the DAC wars out until there is further standardisation, hardware filtering, hardware upsampling choices and newer more robust interface standards such as HDBaseT.

The concept of a networked DAC and the ability to accept or reject a media player request on the fly has appeal.

USB and HDMI suck. We have to move beyond those interfaces for accurate long distance HD digital. Ethernet has always been the best answer.
 
Will be interesting to see how the poll ends up.


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DSD is barely on my radar. The overwhelming majority of content is PCM and with the better DAC's any differences are negligible.
 
I don't know. Given that I have a nice PCM DAC and an entry level Octa DSD512 DAC, I'm inclined to sit the DAC wars out until there is further standardisation, hardware filtering, hardware upsampling choices and newer more robust interface standards such as HDBaseT.

The concept of a networked DAC and the ability to accept or reject a media player request on the fly has appeal.

USB and HDMI suck. We have to move beyond those interfaces for accurate long distance HD digital. Ethernet has always been the best answer.
Ethernet is subject to the same packet noise as USB and is mostly LESS well engineered.

DSD done right is a MUST for me...but most DSD Dacs out there suck.
 
Ethernet is subject to the same packet noise as USB and is mostly LESS well engineered.

DSD done right is a MUST for me...but most DSD Dacs out there suck.

Ethernet is error correcting. The challenge is to buffer and playback the packets in the right bit perfect order.

Linn have developed an ETHERNET based DAC.

HDBaseT DACs are coming. HDBaseT matrix solutions are the future of AV and will solve many problems relating to noise injection and degradation over distance with current digital wiring interfaces.
 
It's interesting to note that Very Important/Important DSD compatibility is currently running at 80%.
 
Which format is currently the dominant format sold internationally?

Which format is currently growing the fastest?
 
Which format is currently the dominant format sold internationally?

Which format is currently growing the fastest?

Since digital album sales (iTuness, etc) are falling and CD sales are falling, then DSD sales would be the fastest growing as those started from almost zero.

The fastest growing format is streaming and there is no DSD steaming there.
 
Which format is currently the dominant format sold internationally?

Which format is currently growing the fastest?

Which format is currently the dominant format sold internationally? I think if you look at all the young people and people in general (internationally covers a broad area) over the world MP3 & ACC are most likely the dominate format.


Which format is currently growing the fastest? I guess it depends on whom you ask, the age groups, and their area in the world. The young people that I know and my kids and their friends, don't have a clue what DSD is but they know what ACC, WAV and MP3 and FLAC are. If its on iTunes and Amazon I would say the majority of people are downloading from these sites. I asked a few folks about HD Tracks , they told me why should I pay for a download that cost more than the CD or a download I can get from Amazon or a download from iTunes.. If you think about DSD being the fastest growing format, I guess it depends on the age group, the content, the demographics and the cost.
 
Somewhat important to me. I have a about a dozen DSD albums vs. over 1500+ PCM recordings. Some sound really good but I would not rate them to be supeior to some excellent PCM recordings. Therefore, I have not jumped into DSD aggressively.

I like having the flexibility to play both PCM and DSD. The Lumin provides that capability which is great.
 
Since digital album sales (iTuness, etc) are falling and CD sales are falling, then DSD sales would be the fastest growing as those started from almost zero.

The fastest growing format is streaming and there is no DSD steaming there.
Didnt someone post about a DSD streaming service a couple months ago?
BMoura, I think...
 
Ethernet is error correcting. The challenge is to buffer and playback the packets in the right bit perfect order.

Linn have developed an ETHERNET based DAC.

HDBaseT DACs are coming. HDBaseT matrix solutions are the future of AV and will solve many problems relating to noise injection and degradation over distance with current digital wiring interfaces.

Its not about error correction, its the stop start feature that creates electrical bursts that induce noise creation. There has been more attention to dealing with this in USB than in Ethernet by most players out there. Several ethernet Dacs out there like Dartzeel and Nadac.

I dont disagree that other upcoming formats will be better...like HDBaseT as you say.
 
DSD.......meh. The artists that I like are not very available on DSD. I have one or two DSD titles, one sounds great,the other not so much.

And I have absolutely no interest in DSD titles that have been converted from PCM sources.
 
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