Ultimate Rips to DSD in 2021 - Price, Effort and File Sizes No Object


There are a few threads on ripping vinyl to computers for various ratios of convenience vs quality.  But as technology continues to march on, I find myself craving hiqh quality files that I can easily transfer from home to car to office and/or traveling.  For example, it would be wonderful to have bit perfect files of my entire record collection.  Recently, I have discovered the RME ADI-2 DAC, a german DAC which seems to have a cult following in the music and studio business and it decodes DSD.  It is also available with an A to D function.  This made me wonder how hard it would really be to start with a great turntable, catridge and phono pre amp....go into such an A to D device, and rip full size, uncompressed files in DSD?  For anyone who wanted to save space on their android or whatever, they could at least have a reference quality, "archive" of the vinyl, and then compress those files for travel?  With so much digital and streamed music sounding so bad, I don't understand why this isn't a more popular topic?  Please do tell and I hope to get set up soon.
cwlondon
cwlondon
... it would be wonderful to have bit perfect files of my entire record collection ...
This really doesn't make sense. How can you have a "bit perfect" copy of an analog source?
... This made me wonder how hard it would really be to start with a great turntable, catridge and phono pre amp....go into such an A to D device, and rip full size, uncompressed files in DSD?
Most people think of it as a pretty tedious process.
... With so much digital and streamed music sounding so bad, I don't understand why this isn't a more popular topic ...
Perhaps many of us are getting better fidelity from our digital. What equipment are you using? What streaming service are you using?
OK, a fair point: "bit perfect" meaning uncompressed, as close as possible to the original - WAV files if ripped from CD etc.

And mike_in_nc, perhaps you also make a good point. I really don’t know much about this device yet and perhaps it only decodes DSD. Maybe Sony or someone owns DSD and it is not even possible?

What I do know, however, is that I rarely hear anything that sounds good anymore, compared to decent vinyl, setups I had decades ago and otherwise and for reasons I don’t understand, when something just sounds really good.

Googling around led me to the notion of DSD, because some files even ripped down to youtube in 1080 seem to have some of the air and smoothness I associate with good audio, vs the stress and fatigue which I associate with bad audio.

If you have seen their videos, the guys at PS Audio also seem enamored with DSD which is what got me thinking. And of course the SACD fans.

Re streaming, I have only tried Pandora and Amazon (HD) but not Tidal or Deezer etc.

I am delighted if you enjoy your own streaming experiences, but frankly any push back on my view that hey, maybe after all these years we still don’t have "perfect sound forever" reminds me of the olden days when everyone (including people here who should have known better and where I have participated since 1999) were arguing about how their MP3 collections sounded indistinguishable from originals and that no one could ever hear a difference - so why not have 500,000,000 songs at your fingertips etc.

No, I would just like to have a nice collection of music that I know I like and I know sounds really, really good please and to not feel fatigued after long and/or loud listening sessions.
So thank you again for your ideas.