IFi Nano (and Micro)-GAME CHANGERS

Thanks for pointing that one out. This was obviously a digital "direct to disc" recording so to speak. No post production, which is obviously not possible for a studio album. Very cool actually.

Edit: it seems it was MIXED to DSD. Then it stayed in DSD for mastering. A rarity.

I know of one other DSD rock recording, by John Hiatt, I believe it was The Open Road, but it was only released as a CD.

 

Name a few studios with DSD editing and mixing capabilities. I don't know of a single one in LA.

I don't see an advantage of recording in DSD vs. recording in 192kHz/24-bit PCM on a conventional, off-shelf Pro Tools system. The Pro Tools system will work, it's well-supported, it has 2014 software, and you can still buy it right now, plus there's tons of studios with which it's compatible.

 

You will more than likely see it in mastering studios, as opposed to recording studios.

 

There are tools and software to do DSD processing. The challenge is getting consumer level tools to do it in consumer style media players. I don't want to give up playback processing (like parametric EQ, Replay Gain style volume leveling, headphone crossfeed processing, and similar processing) just to be able to do DSD playback in proper DSD. I don't expect JRiver to be adding proper full DSD DSP style effects like EQ, headphone crossfeed, and volume leveling to their media player. So the solution will be to convert to PCM to do the processing.

 

This can already be done in foobar2000 with foo_sacd_input & foo_dsd_asio plug-ins, IIUC...

 

What plug-ins would you use within Foobar to do things like EQ or headphone crossfeed in true DSD with no conversion to PCM and back to DSD?

 

Marsh Mastering in LA
Puget Sound in Seattle
Blue Heaven in Kansas
Super Audio Center in Boulder CO
Mofi in Sebastopol CA

I am sure there are others.

 

In pure DSD?.. Not likely. Methinks, it requires DSD-to-PCM conversion (& back to DSD64/128/256/etc. for output into a DSD DAC)...

 

Lee. these are mastering studios. I noted in my post above you will find DSD in most mastering studios these days.
The price of entry for the hard ware is much lower, and the Korg stuff etc.

But Vidiot was referring to recording studios. And he is right. I'm excluding extreme specialty labels like Blue Coast and
M&A, of which 99.99% of the music buying public (what is left of them!) will be uninterested in.

 

In some cases they are both such as Blue Heaven and the SACD Center (part of a recording studio). Of course, you have several in Europe too.

Of course, there are few pop and rock recordings being done today but you should not dismiss all the great music being mastered in the format.

 

Oh absolutely, I understand there some good stuff in DSD. David Elias is my favorite.

But you can count the amount of albums on one hand that are down without overdubs, post production, gain changes, etc. That makes DSD a pipedream.

For me DSD as a commercial format really only has relevance for remastering classic analog recordings. Paying for and listening
to obscure music in a great format is just a non starter.

It is VERY telling that all the major label remastering projects of the last five years skipped over DSD. Led Zeppelin,
The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Elvis Presley etc.

The Stones were the only major classic rock act to put part of their catalog out on SACD And their are still no downloads available,
(only PCM), and I understand that will probably never happen.

 

DSD was originated as an archiving format. But the larger problem is that PCM had a 30 year head start, an eternity in digital tech years. So it has a larger base and it's no surprise we see major releases like Zeppelin and Beatles done in PCM. They had to come out as a major volume release so it would have not worked to release SACDs or DSD downloads. PCM had HDTracks which likely helped. Likewise studio saw the immense popularity of Pro Tools, also PCM, including label executives who started asking for 24/48 files. It's similar to the days when Windows had a 95% share and Apple 5%. I still preferred my mac back then as it was better all around even though I had a windows machine for work and still do.

I think, however, that DSD is a better format in many ways so if we are to go by sound quality it would be a different story.

 

True, DSD originated as an archiving format. It just does not fit in with the way modern records are made.

PCM may have had a head start, but there are still no readily available tools for processing DSD files, 15 years later.

There is one way DSD can be used, and I am surprised this method is not done more. And that is do all of your EQ, compression,
etc in the analog domain and capture that to DSD at the final stage. Mobile Fidelity does this on many of their releases.

Sound quality, no argument here. DSD is terrific.

 

I thought I was talking to everyone!

I am well aware of your history in the industry, but I see a lot of Sony-bashing on the Forum with regard to SACD and wanted to put the record straight. Philips/Sony tried to get the industry to adopt DSD/SACD, but, for the reasons I gave, they decided to stick with the status quo, and, as you point out, Hi-Rez PCM has not really caught on either (let's not forget that even as high a profile project as The Beatles' remasters was not done using Hi-Rez).

I know of industry veterans investing in those old digital formats because the labels are suddenly going to wake up at some point and discover that they no longer have the tools to play their hundreds of thousands of U-Matic, DAT, DASH, etc. tapes, and that they are slowly but surely failing!

John Hiatt's 'Master Of Disaster' was recorded completely in DSD.

Again, that responsibility rests with the manufacturers of the DSD equipment. You can see in the datasheet of the CS4398 chip discussed earlier:

http://www.cirrus.com/en/pubs/proDatasheet/CS4398_F1.pdf

that they have included a DSD processing stage for volume control and on-chip filtering. Nothing is stopping them, or other manufacturers, extending that functionality to all the things you mention. They just need to determine the proper signal processing structures, which is what Philips/Sony were trying to do 15 years ago!

This has been done in numerous SACD projects, but you are dependent on the studio being fully analog. Sony tried to pitch DSD as a replacement for 2" tape (analog like sound with digital flexibility). We had a project in SF to develop a multi-track recorder working at 256 Fs. That way, you could record via analog console to DSD, mix via analog console back to DSD without noise build-up, etc. However, the project got killed before it came to fruition.

 

That's one of the limitations of DSD playback with consumer gear. No digital processing during playback if you want to stay in pure DSD.

 

Just curious if anyone has run into any static electricity issues with the Nano. I sent one back to Music Direct due to one of the RCA outputs intermittently dropping out. Reading over at Head-Fi, it seems that static discharge anomalies are a somewhat known issue with the Nano. My replacement Nano has occasionally shown similar symptoms, though I haven't lost a channel for good again (yet). I think it might be an issue with attaching it to a Schiit Magni, which I have stopped doing.

Again, just curious if I'm the only one to see this on two separate units. Thanks.

 

So in order to do a parametric EQ on DSD (without converting to PCM) the necessary filters needed have to be built in the DAC chip?
In PCM you can have software make its own filters and processing for things like EQ. With DSD you'd have to rely on what filters and enabling processing are in the DAC chip in hardware.
That would explain why Philips and Sony had such a difficult task trying to get agreement and standards on how to do DSD processing.

 

No issues on mine, after 2 months.

iMac > iTunes > Nano > Rotel integrated... cheap cables.

 

No, I was just using that chip as an example that has DSD processing built in. The only reason you have all these 'toys' in PCM is because the design/analysis is now well understood. A similar effort is needed for DSD, with the requisite publications, etc., so that designers can get to grips with how to do all the signal processing in the 1-bit domain. The processing can take place anywhere, just like it does for PCM.

I guess we should let this thread get back to the topic of reviews of the iFi DACs? Now, how do I get my free samples?

 

No issue here, My Nano has been on my desk for about 10 days now working perfectly.

I had one similar but unrelated issue with the Micro. I was using RCA IC's with VERY thick barrels, and I had to twist them a bit
to prevent one channel from dropping out.

 

Ah, so it's just a learning process needed for the software guys. It can be done in software, just differently. Still a big challenge in learning new processing, developing support code libraries, development tools, etc. Not going to happen soon.

This DSD thing for computer playback is new to most of us. I'm just trying to get a basic understanding of what it can do and the challenges.

 

So let's count the myriad of ways that Sony and others screwed up in failing to establish DSD as a viable, mass market format:

-They stupidly did not give away the work stations in the beginning, and then collect licensing fees on the back end, exactly how Microsoft made their billions with
Windows. They should have gone to every recording and mastering studio and given away the work stations.

-They locked the files on SACDs into a physical format. It boggles my mind that they did not develop SACD ripping software, then give it away,
to sell tons of their DSD DAC/amp.

-They failed to follow through with their release campaigns. Then they tried last year to push that hokey nonsense of "DSD 2.0".

-They did not develop affordable, easy to use tools to process DSD files or a Pro Tools equivalent.

We could go on.

 

4 to 6 weeks???


Any other place in US to get the micro?

 

I don't know who carries it but amazon has a lot of their stuff. It is not on amazon now but it just came out and sometimes amazon is second in line.

 

The importer just got a decent shipment. I wold call Music Direct and see if that lead time has been shortened.