@Reynaldo… I’m not being critical of your assessment…
I have been decimating DSD files (including DSD256 files) to DXD and back to DSD128 for as long as I have been a Audirvāna user, so that I can apply HRTF DSP on the DXD signal for headphone playback… I can easily discern the difference between the decimated DSD to DXD iteration and to the modulated DSD128 iteration through my system…
Now in my case this is a full decimation of the file to 24/352.8kHz DXD… My feeling about some editing of the DSD files, is that the necessary decimation to 24/352.8kHz is just focused on a narrow time-window that the DXD signal processing is being applied and not the entire length of the file depending on the type of edit or editing is being done… If all of the tracks of the performance are being mixed and level adjusted, etc, and those tracks have been decimated to DXD, this is a different scenario, than just simple ‘spot’ edits… much like Audirvāna does with software Volume adjustment, but on a much more focused time-window in the mix… I don’t know what type of editing was performed on the files you listened to… It is not enough to say that this edit or that edit was done in the DXD domain… If these files represent different mix/level/EQ domains entirely, then it is safe to say that a DSD256 file has been stripped of a lot of contextual information when decimated to 24/352.8kHz DXD… I hear it all of the time in the juxtaposition to my source DSD128 files that I decimate to DXD. (My DAC supports up to DSD128 files) This differential should be even more evident when comparing the ‘mother’ DSD256 file to the DXD ‘child’ iteration.
More-likely-than-not, DXD ‘spot’ editing is done in very discrete and narrow time-windows so not to stand out in the final production master…
So again, I am not critical of your assessment…
In my experience, in decimating DSD files to DXD, the ‘child’ DXD iteration in comparison to the ‘mother’ DSD file(s) is contextually edgy, less harmonically rich with less micro-dynamic energy… This is why I find your assessment interesting, because obviously you have great familiarity with the sound of your playback system(s).
So we can see that @Agoldnear has been twerking his small signals around quite a bit while telling us that twerking small signals around is a bad thing…
@Ddude003 I guess you have been asleep at the wheel… I listen to binaural DSD files natively and I have always described my playback scenario with DSD files and HRTF DSP… you must have a drop-out in your memory file…
When fed directly over USB by a Mac, since the Mac uses DoP (DSD within a PCM ‘container’ - this is not conversion to PCM). If the connection is from a computer running Windows or Linux (this computer can be the one running Audirvāna or a UPnP endpoint), if I recall, the DAC (it’s a TEAC, the 503?) can receive and play DSD256, is that correct?
And does the same happen to a DSD128 file, the DAC would see DSD64?
You’ll recall in the DSD mixing the volume was adjusted for each source channel. That would be throughout the length of the piece. (It was shown on the picture of HQPP’s matrix dialog and discussed in the article.) In order to make a valid comparison, the same volume adjustments would have to be done throughout the excerpts mixed in DXD.
The DAC is a TEAC UD-501 receiving DSD128 or DSD64 via DoP 1.1…
In my experience with any DSD files of sample-rates to 11.2MHz DSD256 (Where my my general native source reference is 5.6MHz DSD128) that I decimate via Bit Perfect’s ‘DSD Master’ to 24/352.8kHz DXD, there is a perceivable differential in sound-signature… The qualitative difference is perceivable as a subtle edginess, a loss of harmonic/timbral color/density and the loss of micro-dynamic energy, which also influences the perceived soundstage… Fundamentally, the same elements you are perceiving in the auditions of the sample files are the same as my experiences with the DXD ‘child’ iterations of DSD ‘mothers’.
In my case, the modulation of any DXD ‘child’ of a DSD file of any sample-rate to 5.6MHz DSD128 (and 2.8MHz DSD64) removes the edginess, but does nothing to improve on the loss of harmonic/timbral color/density and the loss of micro-dynamic energy. The level of contextual change is plainly audible as auditioned with my playback system. So to extrapolate this to DSD256, I do not expect my experience in comparative sound-signature to change with the increased number of samples, because the common denominator is the 24/352.8kHz DXD decimation signal which clearly contains less sample energy.
I’ve nothing in particular against DSD or even DSD256, but I want to get something cheeky out of my system. I’ve bought a good handful of titles from NativeDSD.com. But for a while now, I get their emails each week and listen to samples of what they are selling, and almost all of it is music that is designed to show off stereos but is incredibly uninteresting music in one way or another. If one’s goal is to “sample peek” (like pixel peep”), then I suppose these are fine. But I’d much rather listen to better music recorded at a lesser sampling rate than much of what they sell these days.
I’m not a fan of the “sonic spectacular” myself. I certainly have to pick and choose among NativeDSD’s offerings. On the other hand, I can say the same about virtually any music store.
I may have other stores with a higher “batting average” than NativeDSD, but for me personally there’s enough that I like to check it out from time to time. You or others may not feel the same way, and I don’t see any problem with that.
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