Just wanted to throw in a few things here...... and confirm a few from my own knowledge......
1) DSD is very difficult to mix or edit (which means that there are only a
VERY few pieces of equipment or software that can do it - and they aren't the cheap ones). In most recording situations this would be considered to be a serious drawback. However, arguably, if you're recording very simple music that actually can be "simply recorded and played back", then you could consider it a sort of advantage..... because it means that many DSD recordings are the equivalent of "direct to disk" - maybe, if you can't easily edit it, then you
WON'T edit it. However, if you imagine that DSD avoids some sort of degradation of the audio signal that PCM will cause, then bear in mind that, if you record something in DSD, convert it to PCM to edit it, then convert it back to DSD to play it, any flaws in
EITHER format will be added together in your final output.
2) Many of the supposed technical arguments in favor of DSD are inaccurate or downright misleading. DSD is a
PURELY DIGITAL format; it is not "closer to analog" because the digital signal itself "looks more like an analog waveform". DSD also does
NOT "require much simpler conversion circuitry and much less filtering" than PCM. While it is true that a simple but poor quality DSD to analog converter
CAN be built, the converters that work well are based on complex DACs quite similar to standard Delta-Sigma designs. Likewise, while single rate DSD does have a frequency response that extends out to around 100 kHz, the S/N ratio at that frequency is extremely low. This means that, in order to limit distortion in your other equipment, and to protect your speakers and other electronics, DSD
REQUIRES relatively aggressive filtering - even more aggressive than PCM. (So, while you can build a "demonstration" DSD decoder with a few simple parts, one that works safely and to "hi-fi" standards isn't at all simple, and requires even more filtering than a PCM-based D/A converter.)
3) The conversion in either direction between DSD and PCM is
NOT lossless. Whenever you convert either to the other, filtering is required, and a slight change in sound is inevitable.
WHETHER YOU START WITH A DSD OR PCM ORIGINAL, if you convert it to the other format, the result will
NOT be absolutely identical. The difference may or may not be audible, and most converters offer lots of options that will have some effect on the results. However, this in no way suggests that either is
better; it simply means that a direct one to one comparison is virtually impossible. (So, if you convert DSD to PCM, or PCM to DSD, it's quite likely that you'll hear a slight difference.... )
4) There are several programs that can play both PCM and DSD and convert between them. Foobar2000 and jRiver Media Center can play both DSD and PCM. jRiver and dBPowerAmp can convert in either direction between DSD and PCM, and Foobar2000 can at least convert from DSD to PCM (and from SACD ISOs to PCM).
Incidentally..... here's a quote about the technical superiority of one or the other: "Technically speaking, PCM from like 88.2kHz /24 bit up, is definitively better than DSD".
(That's taken from a White Paper published by Weiss - who is widely considered to be one of the foremost authorities on DSD and conversion software.)
www.weiss.ch/assets/content/41/white-paper-on-DSD.pdfThe only reason why it's not
completely dead yet is because they've been keeping it on life support to milk those who can't understand what quantization distortion means.
).
