DACS that don't do DSD - obsolete?

Personally I've always preferred SACD / DSD sound. It's always sounded to me like 90% of the way to Vinyl SQ with none of the downsides. But that's besides the point.

Even if I never play a DSD disc for the rest of my life, it seems like with the new PSAUDIO DirectStream, the Chord, The Sony HAPZ1 etc - the new performance frontier is moving to DSD up conversion from PCM etc and the use of gate array's instead of off the (quickly obsoleting) shelf chipsets.

If you have a DSD capable DAC even in a humble version its inevitable that some kind of stand alone device that could do the up-coverting ahead of it and pass through to the DAC would be available in the near future.

Your choice of original media or file type would be irrelevant.

Dear Larrybou,

This is a ridiculous argument, just because a dac can or can't do DSD is hardly a reason for not buying it, you buy a DAC because it sounds great period!

It is of course nice to have a dac which can do DSD but to automatically say that DSD is superior to PCM is a ludicrous statement, it really depends on the hardware.

I have listened to many, many, dacs, and there are ones that sound great on DSD and ones that sound great on PCM but to say automatically that the DSD sounds better or brand A DAC sounds better because it is playing a DSD file is just silly.

On some pieces of hardware DSD files sound too soft and a bit rolled off, while the same file played via PCM sounded more detailed and dynamic so it is up to a persons taste, ear and system match.

My shop sells many dac including the NAD M51 no DSD and the Auralic Vega DSD as well as Naim Dacs No DSD, and it comes down to taste.

The Vega is better than the NAD, but boy does the NAD sound amazing especially for $2k, the new Naim DAC V1 also is shockingly good for $2,500.00

We also sell the Lumin which is a pure streamer which does both DSD conversion and PCM playback and in that piece the DSD conversion does sound a bit better.

So are non DSD Dacs obsolete no they are not, and just because you use a gate array doesn't negate a good dac chip.

The Lumin uses Wolfson dac chips and in a recent demo blew aaway a DCS Puccini which uses a custom ring radiator decoder made from discrete gate arrays so in audio as with a anything else there is no absolute just opinions.

Which is better a Mercedes or BMW? Comes down to taste, doesn't it. Does the Tesla electric car now obsolete the internal combustion engine non-electric car?

Now their are proponents of each but which is ultimately better depends on what you personally value.

Correctly stated.

Thanks for the input. I'm new to the DAC world and trying to get my head around the new technology given the apparent success of the HAPZ1 etc.

Doesn't the Lumin also use DSD upscaling?

Personally I'm not totally sold on DSD on a sound-quality basis alone. DSD has an inherent rolloff above about 8khz that, while not all that prominent to most listeners, is still there. It's not as cleanly extended in the highs as, say, DVD-A, Bluray or even PCM. Below 8k everything is wonderful, so it may well be, as far as all *that* goes, a matter of taste. But, all those manufacturing trends discussed above are only there in direct response to what the recording industry is doing...or is gearing up to do. Sony, who has up until recently been one of the main proponents of DSD, has now officially backed off on their commitment to it. Those who watch the recording biz say Sony likely may not be the last to do so. For any foreseeable future, PCM still looks to be very safe (i.e. the most future-proof for a number of technical reasons) and upstart Bluray may yet take hold at some point.

In the *longer* run, all of us may eventually have to worry about the orchestrations now going on to cease shiny disc production of all kinds, worldwide, and we then enter (or are thrown into) the brave new world of nothing but downloads and clouds. There doesn't seem to be any immediate panic just yet as there are still, no doubt, mountains of prerequisite legal and technical issues that must be sufficiently worked out in advance first, but this is what the international community has been working toward for a number of years now (but, like I say, not all countries are on board yet). But, that day is coming...likely as not, within the next 5 years...