The more 0s there are, the lower the waveform goes, and it’s the opposite for ones. If you could look at a DSD digital stream, it’s possible to draw the analogue waveform simply by looking at the density of 0s and 1s. DSD fans claim the format is as close to analogue as digital gets. Standard DSD recordings are still relatively rare compared with the PCM alternatives, and those higher speed versions are extremely niche. There's even a DSD512 spec, though we've never heard any material encoded in it. Standard DSD is sometimes called DSD64 for this reason, with double and quadruple speed versions called DSD128 and DSD256 respectively. That resolution shortfall is made up by the very high sampling rate of over 2.8 million times a second – that’s 64 times the speed of CD. Compared with the over 65,000 different values 16-bit PCM has, the two values (0 if the new sample if the signal is lower or 1 if it’s higher) of DSD appear mighty limiting. How does DSD work?ĭSD uses a single bit of information, and all this information tells us is whether the current sample of the analogue waveform is higher or lower than in the previous one. It needs less processing than PCM and can use simpler, far less expensive DACs. The main attraction of DSD is its simplicity and, with that, cheapness of implementation. DSD seemed an ideal system to build the new format around, particularly as it has great copy protection. Importantly, DSD was also designed to be easy to convert to PCM files with sampling rates based on multiples of 44.1kHz.Īround the same time, Sony and Philips were developing a replacement for CD, something that ultimately became the SACD disc. It was designed to be a simpler, more space-efficient way of storing digital music data than PCM.
Back in the mid-1990s, it was originally conceived as a way of archiving old analogue recordings.
So, what is DSD audio?ĭSD (Direct Stream Digital) takes a different approach.
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While that looks like an arbitrarily large number, it’s chosen quite carefully to ensure that the full frequency range of human hearing (20Hz to 20kHz) is covered. The measurement is done 44,100 times a second.
The original music waveform has to be measured at regular intervals in order for it to be represented properly.