I think DSD is not really so much of a necessity from sound quality perspective but rather the wish of industry to induce yet another cost on us by making us believe it is something we need. I'd much rather they perfect the PCM technique.
Cheers!
Antun
As the leading DSD home boy here on AC I want to say some things.
1) You can be sure that James and his Bryston team will do the right things when it comes to "DSD retrofitting", as just adding the ability for the chip to read it is not nearly the whole solution. DSD filtering, etc is as important, and those DACs that just add it on have seen their feedback to be average at best. With Bryston's track record there is no way James will do this half-way (assuming they go forward)
2) I am constantly amazed at the perspective of "PCM is better so why do DSD", like it needs to be a contest?? Gold is better than silver, but if you stumbled upon an old silver mine with huge veins of silver, would you think twice about vastly improving your net worth because it means you're gonna have to own both gold and silver?? DSD is not better than PCM, it just allows us access to thousands of recordings that have been transferred (or natively recorded/mastered in some cases) to DSD, and are not available in any other hirez option. If you can find the original master (be it PCM or dusty ole analog tapes) go for it, but in vast majority of the cases the DSD files are the closest generation to the original we are going to get. Go for it.
