Hi all,
How does DSD sampling sound on your RD 160. The installed firmware on my unit is version 1.20.
Out of all the different sampling modes DSD sounds worse in comparison to the rest.
The DSD sounds muted, the clarity has gone across all frequency ranges, sound stage is muted as if someone has thrown a blanket over my speakers.
Am I missing something, any advice would be greatly appreciated
Did you increase the level by 3dB after deciding to convert to DSD (which will produce 3dB less than PCM) ?
Hi Zaboks,
I am using the balanced output from the 160, output level is set to 4v.
Even when I increase the db level the result is very underwhelming and considerably worse than all the other sampling options. I was under the impression DSD was allegedly far superior quality than PCM. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
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It’s just a different way to record sound, it’s not inherently better (does add lots of ultrasonic noise though). With a decent DAC like 160 just send it in whatever format it was recorded.
Many thanks for the advice Boris, much appreciated
You’re welcome.
Most decent modern DACs will already convert incoming signal into an optimal format internally anyway (different with NOS ones, but they just have you do it externally, for no real benefit, unless you are applying some equalization or room correction as the same time) so its best to feed it the original signal and let it deal with it. No resampling can add what’s not in the original data anyway.
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Out of all the sampling options on the RD 160 it sounds the worst. Lack of detail across all frequency ranges, sound stage is smaller and less depth. To be honest it sounds like someone has thrown a blanket over my speakers. I was wondering if it was because I do not have the latest firmware installed ? I’ve only had the 130 &160 3 weeks and am still using the 1.20 version of firmware the unit came with.
Although I have read on the forums that new firmware will make no difference !
Are you converting an PCM stream to DSD internally in converter or do you send a genuine DSD file from the streamer?
Hi Burle,
I’m sending the pcm stream from the 130 to the 160 and then converting to 512 DSD through the 160
That has no sense at all. Depending what DAC you have it can be native PCM (NOS), native DSD (1-bit), or hybrid (multibit). Most probably your DAC is multi bit, so it is not native DSD, so there is no point to convert it to DSD. If you want to listen DSD then you have to have genuine DSD tracks. The best aproach is almost always to let DAC to do all conversions needed and feed it with original digital track.
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The AK4499EX on the RD160 actually has an independent DSD 1-bit dedicated path and does not pass through the delta sigma modulator. But I agree that converting PCM to DSD doesn’t make much sense.
Didn’t know for sure. Nice feature. Thank you for the info.
Thank you Burle, Sharisselis for the advise. I’m quite new to the audiophile world so any tips and advice is greatly appreciated.