Delta Sigma DACs


Can a Delta-Sigma DAC translate both DSD and PCM streams to analog?  If so, how does it handle the inherent differences in their coding formats? If not, are there any brands of DAC that accept both formats?
cheeg
No DAC is perfect. All modern Delta Sigma DACs are actually bit perfect in operation however the noise floor (or resolution) on the very best is about 21 bits. So nothing does 24 bit even remotely perfectly so far. Most good quality delta sigma will be close to bit perfect at 16 bits. However be wary of R-2R DACs as many are only 18 bit or often less (16 bit). For example, the Schiit DACs perform truncation to 24 bit digital data - these are grossly NOT bit perfect because of this throwing away of the least significant bits of data - worse still the truncation operation introduces high amouts of added quantization noise distortion. Definitely about as far from bit perfect as you can get in a modern DAC.

The other factor in many DACs is the final brick wall filter - this causes the final analog result to be slightly different depending on the filter design.

A good DAC and it’s ADC equivalent can be looped more than 10 times with no audible differences.

A bit perfect DAC and its ADC could in theory be looped infinitely and the sound would be identical - so far none exists.


DSD or PCM are just different formats. Mathematically they can be an equally accurate representation of the original musical analog waveform. It is just mathematics - 16 or 24 bit at low sample rate or DSD 1 bit representation at very high frequency. DSD has inherently a huge amount of high frequency noise which must be removed and contains no added audible benefit. Since PCM is what all studios use it is undoubtedly the closest and best distribution format to remain faithful to the product coming from the studios and the mastering process. 




Jwm, nobody is trying to win anything (that would be juvenile).  Sound quality is a matter of DAC quality and not the architecture.  When you listen to SACD or DSD you're listening to the output of the Delta Sigma converter.
DSD has inherently a huge amount of high frequency noise which must be removed and contains no added audible benefit. Since PCM is what all studios use it is undoubtedly the closest and best distribution format to remain faithful to the product coming from the studios and the mastering process.
That’s why I prefer to listen to PCM, through a well implemented R2R Multibit dacs.
If I had and download DSD then I would have to go to a Delta Sigma dac and take a hit on the PCM, but then there are some very expensive discrete R2R multibit dacs that can convert native dsd, one day maybe the price of these will become affordable.
One of them is here, https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/denafrips-dac-owner-impressions-feedback-general-discussion-q...

Cheers George
AFAIK, studios use PCM not because of sound quality but because there is no equipment to do mixing on DSD.  Still a lot of people enjoy SACD and DSD in spite it went thru DSD => PCM => DSD transition.