Playback DSD (natively) with a PC

[Owen Smith]

How bizarre... I take it the issue was was eventually resolved after being reported by all those affected!

No, never resolved. I worked around it by having my Oppo 95 convert DSD to PCM. For all I know I may have other SACDs that have the same problem, I tried the ones I owned when I got the 95 and having settled on DSD to PCM I never tested any new SACDs I got.

Now I play from an Oppo 203 with DSD over HDMI and my new Arcam AVR31 amp plays the DSD. I assume it converts to PCM since there's no option to tell it not to, and speaker distance delays apply.

 

[Owen Smith]

I have dsf files on a windows pc in a shared folder. And access them via the oppo remote control by browsing to the folder on the network. They sound great and play fine without having to convert them to PCM, but oppo didn’t perfect gapless playback before they went out of the blu ray player business.

File formats have to be designed for gapless playback to guarantee it. FLAC is designed for it. MP3 is not, so while you can try to do gapless playback of MP3 and it may work most of the time, it's impossible to be certain it will always work. Given dsf files long pre-date file based playback, the format probably is not designed to ensure gapless playback is guaranteed to work.

 

[coolerking101]

There's a small difference in my experience, but it's equally possible that I'll I'm hearing is different EQ/processing rather than a quality difference. Difficult to tell, and I don't think it's worth the trouble.

That said, instead of getting an expensive DAC and new AVR, you should just get a $70 Sony Blu-Ray Player like the BDP-S3700 (cheaper used) All the ones of its generation (as far as I know) play DSD files in multichannel over HDMI, and do DSD out. Or you can get a X800 for a bit more and get a swiss army knife of a player that will also play DSD files over HDMI. You can play off a USB stick, external hard drive, or network share/NAS.

I have a blu ray player that I use to listen to SACDs (before I build up enough that its time to go through the process of ripping them). I didn't even consider trying to plug an external drive into it. Frankly, I just assumed it wouldn't work properly. I already switch from my PC to my Apple TV for Apple Music, so adding yet another branch to the music tree is not really something I'd like to do. That said, I think this is a GREAT idea in the short term to allow me to decide If I really think hearing unconverted DSD files are truly worth the effort. Thank you!

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Now I play from an Oppo 203 with DSD over HDMI and my new Arcam AVR31 amp plays the DSD. I assume it converts to PCM since there's no option to tell it not to, and speaker distance delays apply.

If you have set your OPPO to pass a DSD bitstream to your Arcam AVR31, if it didn't support DSD decoding I presume you would not hear anything. But I may be wrong...

I assume it converts to PCM since there's no option to tell it not to, and speaker distance delays apply.

Is nothing stated within the user manual. If not maybe Arcam can confirm.

 

[Carlthulhu]

Are you aware that gapless playback is only supported by the OPPO if the audio files are accessed using SMB or NFS file shares, not DLNA/UPnP file shares? Gapless playback is also supported if audio files are accessed via USB connected HDD's.

I just connected a usb hdd to my oppo 205 and played some Santana Lotus tracks encoded as dsf. It plays them with track gaps. I tried both the digital and analog outputs, and both had gaps.

 

[coolerking101]

@coolerking101
I am curious, now that all the wolves have come out of the tree line.
Are you making any progress/decisions on your question, Post 1?
Any external DAC's that you find affordable?
I looked at the Topping MX5, it does support up to DSD256, which is OK, but looks like stereo only, looking at the inputs/outputs.

Did you try this on JRiver?
Playback could not be started using the format 352.8Khz 2ch.
Either your sound card or receiver/DAC is reporting this format is not supported.
This format would work: 176.4Khz 2ch.
Would you like to have your DSP Studio>Output Format settings changed automatically?

I am a gear head, I love to find and use gear on my own, find things out for myself.
I believe the point of your question is while using JRiver, which in my opinion is a fantastic player of all digital files.

I hope you are making progress on your original question.

Well my initial inclination was just to be happy with JRiver doing the conversion, given that the science, as best as I can tell, suggests a minor audible difference. As for DACs, I gave up my search once I realized that my Denon 3600 does not have 5 analog inputs to connect to an external DAC. I couldn't find an external DAC that cost less than my receiver that has the ability to send DSD over HDMI, so I'm SOL.

That said, I love Ubertrout's idea to connect an external drive to my existing blu ray player that can play DSDs without converting them. This will give me a chance to really listen to them in this manner and decide if I can tell an audible to difference between its sound and the sound of the tracks converted to PCM by JRiver. If I find a huge audible difference, I can either live with yet another music streaming device in the chain or start saving up for a higher end AVR/pre-pro.

 

[barfle]

One issue that I haven’t figured out a way past is that when I play dsf files on any of my oppo devices including my bdp 203 and 205 is that they play back with track gaps, not continuously.

Same with my 105.

 

[Carlthulhu]

I just connected a usb hdd to my oppo 205 and played some Santana Lotus tracks encoded as dsf. It plays them with track gaps. I tried both the digital and analog outputs, and both had gaps.

Interesting though, I can play dsf files without track gaps if I bypass the oppo. They stream from my pc to my Marantz 7012 amp and the HEOS app plays dsf files fine with no track gaps. The limitation is that HEOS is still stereo only, no multichannel playback yet. Has anyone heard if they are working on an update for HEOS to enable multichannel playback?

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Interesting though, I can play dsf files without track gaps if I bypass the oppo. They stream from my pc to my Marantz 7012 amp and the HEOS app plays dsf files fine with no track gaps. The limitation is that HEOS is still stereo only, no multichannel playback yet. Has anyone heard if they are working on an update for HEOS to enable multichannel playback?

Different players offer totally different playback capabilities!

Personally, I prefer to encode any music that needs to be heard without gaps, without gaps! ie: as a continuous file, along with a 'cue sheet' navigation file!

 

[Owen Smith]

If you have set your OPPO to pass a DSD bitstream to your Arcam AVR31, if it didn't support DSD decoding I presume you would not hear anything. But I may be wrong...

The AVR31 shows DSD on the front panel display and the DSD frequency in Mhz. What I don't know is whether it goes direct to the DAC or is converted to PCM, but I expect converted since speaker distances are applied.

Is nothing stated within the user manual. If not maybe Arcam can confirm.

Nothing is stated in the rather terse user manual. Asking Arcam things is very hit and miss.

 

[marpow]

Personally, I prefer to encode any music that needs to be heard without gaps, without gaps! ie: as a continuous file, along with a 'cue sheet' navigation file!

I agree with this statement.
To be clear, everything I say is noted as my player is JRiver PC (windows) based.

When I rip music from a Blu Ray using MakeMkv, there is the what I call the root file, one continuous MKV file with no gaps, equal to ripping a movie from a Blu Ray. With JRiver I do not need a Cue Sheet.
Abbey Road a good example, with the MKV file you see the video portion on the TV (monitor) screen, this shows you the name of song, so that you do not have to split into chapters (tracks), so it plays completely gapless without changing a thing and you are able to know the name of song because you can see on video screen.

Now there can be differences, most notably and documented, the 2023 release The Pineapple Thief-How Did We Find our Way. This multi album release pushed the single Blu Ray to the max, so even with all things above they lost video portion for chapter selection and when ripping the video portion was just black. The liner notes on the box set noted this. In hindsight, it was great to see how much a Blu Ray could hold, but would have been better with two Blu Rays.
Some of the albums or portions of the albums where gapless, but i decided to rip all into chapters (tracks) then I could tag and know name of song, etc. Yes there was a little pause/click at what was a gapless section, but I sacrificed that little bit for my easier listening pleasure.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

If the Arcam is displaying the DSD along with its frequency then it must be offering some form of DSD decoding, which is good, as many AVR's still don't.

Have you performed a comparison between setting the OPPO to output a DSD bitstream, and setting the OPPO to output a PCM stream?

 

[par4ken]

I thought that it was so cool to be able to stream from my music storage hard drive to the Oppos. The BDP-103 worked the best the BDP-95 was a bit iffy.

The 95 would not work with .dsf files. Neither unit would play gaplessly. The workaround is to save as one file with a cue sheet. I prefer to keep my music stored as individual files so did not go that route.

I could not get the sharing to work at all without either WMP or JR River enabled on the host computer. When that was done I started to notice my folder files missing. They were actually there but now stored as hidden files along with a smaller version called small art (also a hidden file). In some cases the art files were changed altogether. That frustrated me to no end and as a result I no longer bother to stream to the Oppos at all.

 

[Owen Smith]

Have you performed a comparison between setting the OPPO to output a DSD bitstream, and setting the OPPO to output a PCM stream?

Not yet. I'm delaying that sort of thing until I've had chance to measure speaker levels and distances properly for the new amp. I haven't had time yet, I'm still running with the levels and distances I set on my previous amp. The speakers are the same ones in the same places so should be OK but I'd like to check before I spend a lot of time on comparisons.

 

[par4ken]

Clearly it isn't, since listening is so easily fooled. Your ears are no more infallible than others'.

I hate to repeat myself over and over and over and over again! I have verified the difference on numerous occasions, with my ears. Everytime that I felt that the sound was off I found my that player(s) was outputting DSD as PCM. I'm sorry if you can't believe me. Why did I start a thread about it shortly after getting my Oppo? My expectation bias was the opposite way, I expected no noticeable difference. I was taken by surprise and BLOWN away by the difference in sound quality!

 

[jimfisheye]

If you have an audible difference well out of perception bias territory, that's matter of fact! Other's have demonstrated that with proper transcoding, any difference should be expected to be within perception bias. Not calling you out! More saying they had a different expectation from their experience.

It kind of sounds like you believe that close of a transcode to not be possible and perhaps those making that claim have poor enough hearing to miss it? Dismissing the possibility that a better transcode is possible with different software (than the code written into the OS of that stand alone disc player - that you kind of don't have any way to vet like an app on a computer). And ssully can't imagine anyone would dismiss such a thing!

Two possibilities:
You're talking to a bunch of tin ears here (albeit well meaning).
You missed something! (ie. More capable software)

 

[ssully]

I hate to repeat myself over and over and over and over again! I have verified the difference on numerous occasions, with my ears.

LOL.

Wasn't it Einstein who said something like, doing something over and over and expecting different results is a definition of insanity?

That makes me the insane one for repeatedly trying to clue you in to the reality of perceptual biases in audio evaluation, and how they work.

In short: what you're doing over and over and over is something you're doing the wrong, if your goal is to determine the truth of the matter.

 

[ssully]

If you have an audible difference well out of perception bias territory, that's matter of fact!

A very big if.

Saying you were BLOWN AWAY because your 'expectation bias is the opposite way' isn't nearly big enough to get past that if.

Posters, just ask yourself, would it pass as science? Which requires knowing a little bit about the practice and standards of science.


And no, transcoding from DSD to PCM isn't really an issue. DSD was literally designed to be transcoded to PCM. Even transcoding to non-integer multiples of 44.1 is vanishingly unlikely to be audible. Doing it 'badly' enough to be audible would be something like transcoding DSD to 12 bit PCM. I can't think of a device or software that is that bad.

If one device 'does something' beyond merely transcoding, and the other doesn't, all bets are off. 'Something' like: Adjusting any channel levels. Adding EQ. Having significantly different analog output stage voltage.

It's not magic. And the way to tell if it's audible, is blind tests, and if those prove positive, then check for one of the 'somethings' above. Or, do that checking first. All are able to be measured. It's not magic and it's not a mystery unknown to science.

 

[Sal1950]

My expectation bias was the opposite way, I expected no noticeable difference. I was taken by surprise and BLOWN away by the difference in sound quality!

Two possibilities:
You're talking to a bunch of tin ears here (albeit well meaning).
You missed something! (ie. More capable software)

A difference of that magnitude would be an easily measured quantity.
I'm not your guy here, I'm not a trans-coding expert but your reports only point to
the two options Jim just stated above.
Since I'm very willing to believe your subjective report on this, if you want pcm copies you need to determine what is wrong with your procedure or the software involved.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Just to make the point, @par4ken s observation is that there is an obvious sound quality difference when he allows his oppo103 to output DSD as PCM where the oppo is making the conversion internally on the fly.

When he converts a DSD file to PCM using foobar and his selected filter, there is no difference, or at least nothing obvious.

It actually sounds like a deficiency in his disc player, not a problem with perception bias.