SACD sound on master vs disc

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Robert Harley -- Mon, 07/24/2006 - 13:20

A good thought question - one that (I don't think) was
mentioned in the roundtable discussions. Why does a
DSD master outperform a PCM one but that on playback,
the opposite is true ?

John Harnick

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Robert Harley -- Mon, 07/24/2006 - 13:24

I don't agree with your assumption that a Direct Stream Digital master recording sounds better than the same bitstream read from a consumer release on SACD.

I think the problem you notice is that many original DSD masters are converted to PCM at some point in the mastering chain, and then back to DSD for the SACD release. The entire recording industry infrastructure and mastering tools are based on PCM; any signal procesing in native DSD is difficult to achieve technically, and hard to find. Converting DSD to PCM obviates some of DSD's advantages, particulary in removing the steep digital filters required of PCM.

Robert Harley
Editor-in-Chief
The Absolute Sound
The Perfect Vision

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