Best sample rate converter software for DSD to PCM and PCM to DSD?

I'd like to know what are the best sample rate converters for DSD to PCM, PCM to DSD and of course for downsampling HiRez PCM to 44.1 Khz for CD burning.
A friend of mine has Weiss Saracon, which I like a lot as it gives excellent results, but I have to go to his place to do the convertions. My friend has told me Saracon is used at the Super Audio CD Center for DSD convertion when they are sent a PCM master so they can do the disc authoring.
Is Saracon the best sample rate convertion software available or are there better options?
I think I read somewhere that Audio Fidelity's Blade Runner soundtrack SACD was sourced from a High Rez PCM master, I'd like to know what Mr. Gray used for converting the PCM master to DSD.
Thanks in advance.

 

I would love to know this and if people think the conversion causes any problems.

 

Weiss Saracon is very transparent on the DSD-to-PCM 176.4 Khz/24 bit convertions I've made, but one has to know how to set it well.

 

You might like to look at this comparison: Archimago's Musings: ANALYSIS: A Comparison of DSD Encoders & Decoders (KORG AudioGate, JRiver MC, Weiss Saracon) »

If by any chance you didn't know, Saracon costs about US $1700 to license. The "second-best" converter in the comparison was JRiver Media Center, which last time I looked was about US $50 for a license.

(If I were doing this for a living, I'd buy Saracon -- Weiss has a wonderful reputation for all the stuff they develop -- but as a home user, I'm sticking with JRiver.)

HTH

 

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I know Weiss Saracon is quite expensive but it performs really really well. I'll keep going to my friend's for my DSD to Hi-Res PCM conversions, I like how my SACDs sound converted to PCM (my Pioneer Elite A/V receiver converts DSD to PCM) with Saracon.

 

This doesn't sound right. Audio Fidelity usually does only digital from analog transfers. In fact, if I remember right, Steve (our host) even said they never convert the SACD or DSD to PCM. I would imagine he does a separate transfer to the respective digital format.
I don't understand why anyone would want to do a digital conversion from DSD to PCM or vice versa. Just keep it in the original format. It's digital already.

If you want to do resampling for playback (dac dependent) and/or format conversions, I would recommend just using HQ media player and do it on the fly. Keep the original files as is.

 

I play my HiRes files either with an Oppo BDP-93 or directly from my Pioneer Elite A/V receiver. I don't want a computer on my home theater/music system. I have the music files stored on a Solid State Disk which I connect to the Oppo or the Pioneer receiver via USB. I get the DSD files from my original SACD discs which I first rip into an ISO and then extract the individual DSD tracks with a program called ISO2DSD. I then convert the DSD to PCM 176 Khz/24 bit FLAC with Weiss Saracon. As I said before, my Pioneer Elite A/V receiver converts DSD to PCM even if DIRECT or PURE DIRECT modes are engaged. I find Saracon, if set up properly,to do a better DSD to PCM conversion than my Pioneer A/V receiver. I keep several back up copies of everything, the SACD ISOs, the albums on individual DSD tracks and my DSD to PCM conversions. In the case I buy a D/A converter or an A/V receiver that can play DSD files natively, I already have my SACD albums as native DSD files, but in the mean time I play the DSD to PCM converted files on the Pioneer Elite A/V receiver which I don't intend to change anytime soon as I'm very happy with it.

 

Hi EVH - what settings do you use for your DSD > PCM conversions?

 

I think they are quite conservative. They are as follows:
PCM Output:Flac
Number Format: 24 bit
Dither: POWr3
Sample Rate:176.4 Khz
Gain dB: +3.5
I find a gain of +3.5 dB to work well with all the recordings I've converted. I find the default value of +6dB too higher and not suitable for some recordings, try to convert Michael Jackson's Thriller SACD at +6 dB and you'll get distorsion, even my "standard" gain of +3.5 dB is way too high. For this recording I used a gain of +2 dB and got good results.
Most will think that dithering and noise shaping a 24 bit file to be overkill, but as I'm not using the default gain of +6 dB (I don't like how it sounds and with some recordings one may get clipping) but an "average", dithurrenter and noise shaping may compensate for the recordings that may got their gain higher, and it won't doany harm.
Believe me I've done several tests with diferent configurations and kinds of music and I find my current configuration to sound very good for me.

 

Thanks - I'll give them a try.

I'm not sure whether you are Mac or PC based, but if it's Mac - try DSD Master.
The PCM output conversion is excellent, and it fits better in my workflow - ISO2DSD (output to Sony DSF format) > YATE (Tag Editor) > DSD Master (24bit/176kHz) > iTunes/Audirvana.

 

I do not bother with that. I keep everything in full format and upsample/downsample as needed on the fly with JRiver.

 

You bought a copy of Saracon? So my understanding is that any conversion of DSD to PCM or vice versa is a Lossy process. This is why my next DAC will be able to handle either format natively. Which sucks because I really would like a ladder DAC. Funny how digital audio is more of a quagmire now than a nice turntable setup.

 

So is it better to leave the audio file as DSD and let JRiver (19 in my case) convert on the fly?

Or is it best to convert the DSD files to PCM (say 24/96)? I use iso2dsd (Sonores) to convert iso files to dsd tracks and then dBpoweramp to convert those to PCM 24/96.

What do people think?

 

Either way it's Lossy. I don't think there's much difference between converting on the fly or a full conversion then playing it it JRiver. Maybe more a chance of messing it up doing a full conversion because you have to remember to down sample but not really hard.

 

DSD uses a sampling frequency of CD's 44.1 Khz x 64. For DSD to PCM conversion I'd use an even multiple like 88.2 Khz or 176.4 Khz.

 

Yes. I downsample DSD to 24/176.4 PCM in order to use DiracLive REQ. PCM is downsampled to 24/192.

 

Just for information purposes, I decided to test this with my gear. I used the 2012 SACD of the debut Black Sabbath album.

In the comparison, I compared:

The SACD .iso, played through JRiver 19 converting it to PCM 24/96 on the fly,

and

24/96 PCM Files played through JRiver 19 without any conversion. The files were derived from the same SACD .iso, I used Sonores Iso2dsd to seperate the .iso into DSD tracks, then converted them to PCM using dBPoweramp. I could have set the bitrate & sampling rate, but left it as 'same as original' which produced PCM 24/96 tracks. I don't know much about the volume of SACDs, however the resultant files had a maximum peak level of about -6dB. So using Izotope RX4 I normalised the whole album (not individual tracks) to a maximum peak level of -0.7dB.

In the comparison the SACD .iso converted on the fly was a tad louder than the PCMs I'd manually converted. However, the PCMs I manually converted were cleaner and unfortunately in comparison the SACD .iso converted on the fly sounded like 'distortion city'.