I am mainly vinyl listener but have an Aurender (mainly for Grateful Dead concerts), thousands of CD's in binder folios and a handful of SACDs. When the recent MFSL DSD archiving confusion erupted, I started to look into DSD with more interest. Having been a longtime Berkeley Audio Designs owner, I quietly viewed DSD as pointless and pretty much stuck with high quality 44.1/16 or other WAV rip. FLAC only when WAV is not available.
Well that's changed! The sonic comparisons aside, I find DSD to be far from pointless. I actually see it as the ideal archiving tool. High sample rate, analogue sourced masters are securely and forever captured like a blockchain. It can't be edited. Yes, it can be dropped to DXD or PCM for editing and then recorded back to DSD. As long as this is disclosed, fine (but no longer an archive master). If it remains Pure DSD transfer from Analogue Tape, it is a perfect capture of the event. To me this is a practical application for aging tapes that will be unavailable for pure analog dupes in the future.
I feel good about learning a little more in the hobby and expanding the media horizon. AND Still can't wait any longer for the Van Halen One-Step releases!