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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
williewonka
3,075 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....
mahler123 OP
3,319 posts
 
If you are still playing the original file types, and the same dac, then how do you know it's the cables?  I haven't found that cables and room treatments make the slightest bit of difference for this issue.  My SACDs sound great but some--not all-- of my CDs tend to harden up in loud passages.

brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
Herr Mahler, I bought a Sony 5400 ES back about a year after they came out.  I noticed the same thing.  SACD's almost all sounded far better than redbook, with any digital glare type artifacts being rare.  I began to invest heavily in classical SACDs.  After I owned the Sony for a year, I sent it to ModWright.  It came back much better overall, but particularly notable was how much it elevated redbook.  I'd say 65-70% of my redbook cds were within a stone's throw of SACD.  Digital glare was not totally absent from all CDs but was substantially reduced in most cases. Only a few of my redbook CDs remained objectionable.  In May 2014 I bought a Sony HAPZ1.  I was immediately impressed by this unit.  After a couple weeks of burn in, the stock HAPZ1's overall performance was nearly on a par with the modded 5400ES, and I noted that some redbook CDs that were virtually unlistenable on the 5400 were now quite acceptable when upsampled.  I subsequently sent the HAPZ1 to ModWright for modification, which of course, improved it further.
I have owned two Denon players in the past.  Both of them were highly resolving, but also prone to digital glare.  I am also not a big fan of B&W speakers.  I could imagine the B&Ws combined with a Denon might be problematic. 
You have a couple of options.  Since you already own an Oppo, you could send it to ModWright.  For a similar investment, you could buy an HAPZ1.  Based on my experience and overall satisfaction with my HAPZ1, I might recommend that approach. In fact, my Modwright 5400 is rarely used. There was a bit of a learning curve with the HAPZ1, and it certainly takes a while to burn and transfer an extensive library.  The HAPZ1 firmware is much better than the initial iterations, and it is nice being able to browse my entire library via my tablet instead of hunting through a bunch of CDs, no matter how well organized they may be.  
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