The best audio format, ever

ALL digital formats are trying to recreate what analogue does intrinsically. Therefore, analogue is, and will always be superior. Why is there even a discussion? Maybe there's an argument for best DIGITAL medium.

You cannot measure how something makes you feel. Speakers and amps with great measurements often are sterile sounding. The best format is the one that puts you closer to the music not the best measuring. Digital will never beat analog in this regard.

My money is on 8 track 😊

All else aside, a well recorded well engineered recording direct to digital will sound great. Poorly recorded, badly engineered recording direct to digital will sound like garbage, but DSD will be the most accurate in either case. My take...

The future of. Pro audio is dsp and mixing your own from a master.

Ive never heard of PS before, but now i need it

The best audio format is Audio CD (stereo). But the true fact - should enjoy the track you are listening to…. doesn’t matter the quality of music not less than an original audio cd quality. Personally I like to hold music physically and love the manual actions to take disc from the cover, just give a gentle blow to remove dust from cd and insert …. rather than instructing siri to play song… I take little efforts to listen music and its more sweeter.Avoid screen time while listening to music. Now I need to relax ….going to listen Christopher Cross song …. Sailing

A si

Dear Paul. I did a lot of searching but no answers. So you are my last resort. I've got Qobuz, Tidal and Apple Music on my macbook air. Nice but I do not want the mac doing anything else than put through the music via Thunderbolt adapter HDMI cable to my Anthem AVM70 to do all the translation. I cannot get it work. The Mac keeps giving out (L)PCM so the mac is still unpacking. How do I solve this?

I thought that mixing using DSD meant having to first convert it to PCM to make modifications, then having to change it back to DSD?

When it comes to recording the music, there is no point in debating the pros and cons of tape. The imperfections are desirable in some situations. Once the music has been captured with the imperfect sounds the artist intended to create, then make a digital copy of it and call it done.

Great video!!

you seem to talk a lot about dog poop a lot. Even when a dog farts it is in perfect analogue. so they can't be too bad.

A C E T A T E

How is your hearing aid

Number one your to old to even talk this

Wrong

PCM and DSD are completely equivalent, and even garbage 16-bit resistor ladder DACs are close to the limit of human hearing. Noise shaping dithering and either resistor ladders at 96kHz, or delta-sigma modulators at 48kHz, completely fill to the edge of known human auditory performance. DSD is mostly wank: it's not broken, it's just needlessly complicated to use PDM rather than PCM. The other dirty secret? PDM/DSD recordings are produced with PCM DSP.

Recording + mastering are everything.
Whether PCM or DSD does not matter

If DSD is so amazing why are we bothering with mp3? Why can't music be sold in DSD?

Not saying the songs themselves are the best but the quality of the audio recordings just sound best from the 80s. Maybe it’s just me but 80s music just sounds so clean.

It's not the best audio format per se. But the best LOSSY audio format I've experienced is OPUS. It's like a baby FLAC and extremely efficient.

I call BS on any blanket statement that DSD sounds inherently better than PCM, ie that DSD has some physics or signal theory advantage over pcm at equivalent sampling rates and playback chain
I have never seen reliable dbabx results demonstrating consistent superiority of sound quality of dsd over pcm
Please post links to results if available
Feed a live performance from the mics to simultaneous dsd64 and pcm 88.2, or multiples of these equivalent rates, on the same model recorder.
Then play those dsd and pcm recordings on any playback chain you want, same dac and analog chain after the dac all the way to the speakers or headphones.
Double blind abx and post results
Anything else is opinion and bias

live performance

I heard there is one better, but only a few recording to listen to: DBX DISC. Any comment?

I agree entirely with Paul about DSD and SACDs. There is a combination of warmth and inner detail with transients brilliantly projected

I hate how tapes got eaten. VHS or cassette. They sound awesome other then maybe tapes "scream", Vinyl crackeles . The early dolby/dsp stuff created a confusion between 2.0 vs 5.1. I am not sure if you are supposed to match the output/input sensitivity ? Or use a variable output. What the heck is "5.1" or 7.1 DSP.? There is no OSD if you use a $1000 blue tooth speaker. At what point do you use pro audio or car audio?

The trouble with DSD is convenience...

DSD is great yes, but also 32 bit 384kH , whats is inportant is the microphone, the soubd of the hall, the cuality of the instruments? Musicians?

I belive you but DSD is not very available

No more fing around...one video format and one audio format...and thats it...

answer=.wav

I would bet anything that Paul could not tell DSD from 24/96 .... why should he be different from anyone else on the planet?

I always thought PCM was the most used to master in on DAT tapes. Then DSD was a way to record on a SACD, which was better than a cd but still not as good as DAT. So I thought DSD is supposed to be a middle man. Not the best but inbetween.

The "thank God we're finally moving back to vinyl" crowd is going to HATE this... :D

Thanks

Without watching... NOTATION. Written music is the most important recording method EVER.

Live that’s the best

Weird

It comes down on how good the recording is, not the format only plays a role. Good red book (CD quality) recordings can easily sound a lot better than DSD that hasn't been well recorded. Let your ears be the judge. And unfortunately DSD remains a very limited offer to consumers.

What is the best lossless formats? And which lossless format is the smallest format for storage and still keeps lossless and can be manipulated into higher but rate ect?

freakin' nerd, you may have a new sub.

False, Rob Watts from Chord Electronics would disagree with a landslide.

What is DSD please somebody 😎👍

So the moral of the story is that even the bestest format ever won't win you a Grammy... 🤔

DSD might be good straight from a microphone. But you can't do much else, without converting to PCM.
By the way, if you record straight from a mic to PCM at 96kHz & 24bit or higher, it sounds just like analog feed. So DSD is not better than PCM.

Reel to reel

High-quality vinyl, with an ultrasonic cleaning and good stereo system, is magical.