Conversion to DSD: Does It Eliminate Digital Glare?


Hi All

  This question is for people that have gear capable of converting vanilla redbook pcm CD files in to DSD.
To my knowledge this would include the Sony HAP ES and certain DACs, such as one that I am interested in, the Mytec Manhatten.
   I currently have two highly resolving CD Players, the Oppo 105 and the Denon "Anniversary Edition" SACD/CD player.  I listen to Classical Music about 99.9% of the time.  Rest of the system is Parasound PreAmp JC-1 and Power Amp A-21 with B&W 803- Diamond speakers; Bluesound Vault-2 and Node-2;
and a MacBook Air via Thunderbolt/Firewire adapter into a 10 year old Apogee firewire dac.
  My complaint is that some CDs, particularly in full Orchestral passages, tend to harden, particularly the strings.  My SACDs (I have over 100) don't do that, and I tend to attribute this to the DSD used in SACDs.
I am therefore interested if converting vanilla rebook CDs to DSD tends to eliminate this problem.    
mahler123

Showing 1 response by yping

Does conversion to DSD eliminate glare?
Conversion of PCM to 128/256/512 DSD is desirable with delivering a more accurate analogue signal to your Pre Amp/Receiver/Amp and more closely emulates the analogue signal delivered from a TT or Reel to Reel setup, while endeavoring to ensure accurate translation of the original source recording to an analogue signal.

So the question you can ask is... can a TT or Reel to Reel (analogue) setup sound GLARY? ... of course, the answer is YES :)

You always need to pay attention to your setup, especially your speaker placement/setup and room setup :)

It would appear that translation/upsampling of PCM to 256/512 DSD is (can be) a good idea, especially if no Dac is used and the noise can be effectively dealt with (cleanly removed) :)