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Conversion to DSD: Does It Eliminate Digital Glare?

Hi All

  This question is for people that have gear capable of converting vanilla redbook pcm CD files in to DSD.
To my knowledge this would include the Sony HAP ES and certain DACs, such as one that I am interested in, the Mytec Manhatten.
   I currently have two highly resolving CD Players, the Oppo 105 and the Denon "Anniversary Edition" SACD/CD player.  I listen to Classical Music about 99.9% of the time.  Rest of the system is Parasound PreAmp JC-1 and Power Amp A-21 with B&W 803- Diamond speakers; Bluesound Vault-2 and Node-2;
and a MacBook Air via Thunderbolt/Firewire adapter into a 10 year old Apogee firewire dac.
  My complaint is that some CDs, particularly in full Orchestral passages, tend to harden, particularly the strings.  My SACDs (I have over 100) don't do that, and I tend to attribute this to the DSD used in SACDs.
I am therefore interested if converting vanilla rebook CDs to DSD tends to eliminate this problem.    
mahler123

Showing 2 responses by williewonka

williewonka
3,072 posts
 
I do not believe it will - I think your problems are probably more to do with
1, Cables
2. acoustic treatments
3. speaker placement

I’ve invested a considerable amount of time and effort (and some $$$) in all of these for considerable rewards.

I first focussed first on cables and then on acoustic treatments and finally speaker placement.

All of these achieved far more than converting from one file type to another - in fact I’m still playing the original file types & resolutions that I have always played with the very same DAC.

My cables are what I consider to be the mainstay of my system and the acoustic treatments - the icing on the cake

Speaker placement - the extremely fine tuning for superb imaging

My classical collection leaves nothing left to be desired - even from systems costing sever thousand $$$ more than my own very modest system

Regards....
williewonka
3,072 posts
 
Mahler123 - I've just completed about two years of auditioning different cables, more recently implementing acoustic treatments and lastly, the final repositioning of my speakers.

During that time I have experienced what I refer to as "glare" at varying levels and with each change I made, while playing tracks having various file types (WAV, FLAC, DSD, AAC, MP3 etc.. and sample rates from 16/44 to 24/192.

A few tracks are in a couple of different formats and a couple of tracks were recorded at different sample rates - each seemed to present a similar amount of "glare" with each of the cables tried.

Surprisingly, I also found the level of "glare" varied each time I applied room treatments. I believe the final improvements were due to the reduction in reflected waves bouncing around the room, which would indicate that they too seemed to effect the "glare" that I was experiencing.

Once I had the acoustic treatments sorted - all that was left was to reposition my speakers for a final improvement in "glare"

So perhaps what I was experiencing and believing to be "glare" is not the same thing you are hearing.

From your description - "the hardness in full orchestral pieces" is also what I experienced - along with some very shrill moments on solo violin in the upper register and some really awful moments when sopranos hit their higher register with gusto - they now all seem to have been resolved and sound much smoother and extremely detailed AND - I can play the music at significantly higher volumes :-)

So perhaps we are talking about two different things - but what I experienced during this period on my system - neither the format or the sample rates seemed to make a scrap of difference to the particular degradation in sound that I experienced.

I hope you find a resolution to the issue, because what I experienced was very unpleasant and quite frustrating.

Regards...




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