A debate: PCM versus DSD

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Amazingly enough, BD supporters aren't wound up tin soldiers all with the exact same opinion on subjects.

PCM (Pulse Coded Modulation) represents audio as a series of instantaneous levels represented by a value (commonly 8 - 24 bits per value, 8Hkz - 192Khz sample rate).

DSD (Direct-Stream Digital) stores audio as delta-sigma modulated technique which represent audio as a series of 1-bit values. (e.g. SACD is 64x CD sample rate, or 2.8224 MHz)



In the Insider's Thread, it has been asked why Blu-ray didn't have DSD include in the spec. The question before us:

Given the Blu-ray disc capacity (not SACD), is DSD capable of better fidelity over LPCM?

My position: LPCM on Blu-ray can provide fidelity beyond reasonableness, so adding further complexity to the Blu-ray standard was unnecessary.

Consider 7.1 channel LPCM (the pinnacle of what we could expect) and a BD-50 disc:

96Khz/24-bit: 18.432Mbps - > 6 hours
192Khz/24-bit: 36.864Mbps - > 3 hours (actually, I think BD is limitted to 6 channel for 192Khz)

How could any audio equipment that a home user could reasonably be expected to be able to afford be able to deliver 192Khz/24-bit fidelity, let alone improve on it?

Gary

[dvda-sacd]

Maybe Sony wants Blu-ray Disc to kill off DVD-Audio with 5.1-channel PCM up to 192kHz sampling rate and 24-bit resolution. Then Super Audio CD will remain as a pure audio format with an exclusive audio encoding technology (Direct Stream Digital).

DXD recording for SACD:
http://www.sa-cd.net/showthread/18108//y?page=first

I hope DSD 256 fs will be a consumer format in the future.

Cheers!

[Zinn]

I have Harman Kardon DVD47 with a matching recviver.

I have Dark side of the sun on SACD and the bootleged version on dvda (google: dsotm dvda) and I think the DVD-A is better. The latest disc bought was Beatles LOVE on DVD-A and it is 5.1 MLP @ 96kHz/24-bit and it's frekkin awesome.

[Rivera213]

DSD recording is a hell of alot better than any other.

SACD is a million times better than DVD-A.

I don't really care in the scientifics of either, but simply put, over both the format wars:

Blu-Ray -> HD-DVD

SACD -> DVD-A


But i'm looking at it as a music career ie professional level, so for home audio the stuff is expensive and may be a bit pointless. Most non-musicians don't have aywhere near the hearing ability of musicians so it may not make a huge difference from even regular CD to SACD, but for me, SACD is the way to go & i will eventually buy a Marantz SACD player for sure.

My recording will be on a DSD "tape deck" recorder, edited on a DSM-7.1 surround sound editer. It is 7.1 capable if you edit it so & it's the best audio disc available.

[Alex Pallas]

sacd can handle more frequencies and is therefore theoretically better however some people complain about distortion in sacd. the reason i prefer dvd-a is because sacd cannot be copied to a harddrive and therefore takes up more space than i'm willing to allocate for an album.

[dobyblue]

I prefer SACD because it is one set bit rate. On DVD-A you get 24/48, 24/96 and sometimes 24/192 stereo.
SACD is always good and it has better fidelity into 5.1 than DVD-A.
Of course now with Blu-ray they can do 24/192 5.1 encodes which is better fidelity than SACD.
SACD sounds incredibly natural and warm like vinyl, but with no pops or hisses.