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A good taste of DSD--what is your experience?

Over the last year or so I've pushed to get my digital front end to sound better.  I loosely define better to mean just that and "a touch more analog sounding."

My tube DAC is DSD 256 ready.  I had to use third party software to stream DSD to the DAC from my Mac Air.  I bought 6 DSD albums from Acoustic Sounds. 

While I generally think Redbook sounds great on this DAC and 96kHz files don't sound that much better and Redbook.  With DSD, the margin is greater for the better.  Everything still depends on how good the original recording is though.  

Some older recordings I tried, such as John Lee Hooker and Elvis, sound superb in DSD.  And through a 300B amp the vocals are scary real in the listening space.  The downside to me is cost of the albums, limited DSD library available, and the age-old problem for me of not having an album to hold and read.  I'm not fond of doing the ritual exclusively on a laptop.  

I'm curious as to the experiences of others.  If you have embraced this format, how do you run it and what changes to your system or listening habits have you made ,if any, to accommodate it?

128x128jbhiller
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,587 posts
 
The 1994 Virgins and the 2002 ABKCOs are both remasters of the Stones catalogs and both are said to be improvements over the 1986 ABKCO original release on CD. The 2002 remasters were done in conjunction with the Stones' catalog release on SACD

I haven’t compared the 1994 Virgins to the 2002 ABKCOs, but what I’ve read is that the 1994 Virgins sound fine and if you own them there’s no need to upgrade to the 2002 ABKCOs. Of course some people feel that the 2002 ABKCOs sound better.

The 2002s are compressed by about 1db over the 1986 CDs. Some people always prefer the least compressed CD release, others do not.
glupson
7,842 posts
 
The Rolling Stones SACDs (and "DSD CDs") are hard to compare to 1990s Virgin remasters. Mainly because they are different albums (Virgin did not have rights to those early ABKCO albums, I think). Otherwise, comparing The Rolling Stones' first album from one of the early days of CDs with these SACDs is apples-to-apples and SACD is objectively much better. However, it may be too good in some way.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Is there an echo in here?
glupson
7,842 posts
 
No, it is not an echo. They actually printed them more than once.
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
4,134 posts
 
I have let it bleed on DSD and I try down loading it .i had to convert it 24 176
and was not too happy with the sound quality . Maybe 
buying from HD Trax   Their masters iwould be noticably better since they know proper editing l I will try a few , just not a lot variety out there at the moment .
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