markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Lots of great info here. I really appreciate everyone's input.
Not streaming - dedicated PC
- Thread starter markshan
- Start date
Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:
I found this in the linn.co.uk user forum, but you can find similar explanations elsewhere:
"If a DSD file is converted to PCM with no gain adjustment it will sound 6dB quieter than the equivalant native PCM file. This gain difference is deliberate and is required in DSD to prevent overload in the sigma-delta modulator."
He goes on to say that you can't blindly bump the gain by 6dB because the DSD modulator may have peaks that exceed -6dB. I read elsewhere that the DSD spec allows up to plus or minus 3.1dB variation from the -6dB standard; so you would probably be safe by blindly adding 3dB gain. I usually measure the dff peaks directly with foobar2k dynamic range meter and then add gain to the conversion based on the highest peak reported by DRM.
"If a DSD file is converted to PCM with no gain adjustment it will sound 6dB quieter than the equivalant native PCM file. This gain difference is deliberate and is required in DSD to prevent overload in the sigma-delta modulator."
He goes on to say that you can't blindly bump the gain by 6dB because the DSD modulator may have peaks that exceed -6dB. I read elsewhere that the DSD spec allows up to plus or minus 3.1dB variation from the -6dB standard; so you would probably be safe by blindly adding 3dB gain. I usually measure the dff peaks directly with foobar2k dynamic range meter and then add gain to the conversion based on the highest peak reported by DRM.
I suspect ‘Louder sounds is Better’ might explain why DSD is often preferred to PCM by some.
From what I have read, DSD files are typically encoded such that -6 dB FS is the maximum value instead of 0 dBFS, in order to avoid instability in the process of creating them. This difference in gain is typically handled in the back end in most playback equipment.
More than likely. When I initially started off with my conversion and was playing these converted flac files, I kept thinking these sound so dull.
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
I don't think there's a way to use ReplayGain on an SACD .iso (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this) which is the main reason I convert them to FLAC. I usually do 2 conversions. The first determines the album peak as described by sukothai above. I then adjust the decibel boost accordingly in Foobar's SACD preferences before the final conversion, for maximum level. (A bit obsessive, but there it is.) 
markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
I'm fine using the volume control. Great info, though.
foobar2K DRM works with SACD iso or dff files. It is unbearably slow on iso files (probably because it is converting on the fly) but is fine with dff files. I extract the multichannel tracks to a dff with sacd-ripper first anyway; so checking the peaks on the dff with DRM saves having to convert it twice.
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
Ah! Thanks very much for this tip.
Do you mean dsf files? I've not yet used dff that I know of.
A dff is the Philips format DSDIFF file. dsf is the Sony format that allows more meta data to be stored with the file. DSD downloads are usually dsf because of the metadata benefit, but for converting to PCM, the simpler dff format is easier to deal with. The sacd-ripper program will output either format.
Frogmort
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
The only reason I use SACD ISOs instead of just ripping them to flacs is that when I've tried that with Foobar, there are tiny clicks between most tracks. Is there a way to do this without clicks?
I've found I don't get any clicks when converting from dff to pcm (flac). I got clicks when converting from dsf to pcm a while back, though they are upgrading the "Super Audio CD Decoder" component for fb2k all the time and you might find it is fixed for dsf now. I used to edit the converted files to remove or silence the clicks, but I haven't had to do that in a while.
Similar to Sukothai's experience with the clicks, I use the Sonare software to extract an ISO. Then I use it to extract DFF files from the ISO (not DSF), both the stereo and the MC. Then convert to FLAC. There are no clicks. There are clicks when I've tried extracting DSF files.
My understanding is that the clicks are due to an error in the Sonare software in that the final packet of data is not recorded properly using the DSF extraction option.
Then why bother with adding file storage and copying stuff over to additional drives and all that? If everything is network connected you can just stream the files from your main PC to your HTPC. Easy peasy.
And in that case, the main PC is where the RAID setup should be. Don't underestimate the possibility od a disk or system crash. They happen more often than you might expect.
markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Is it like an SBE?
markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
How is having the files on two computers underestimating the possibility of a crash?
to me that seems to be better than a raid set up. You will have the files on two separate pcs, so if one crashes, you still have files on your other pc.
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
Yes, the thing that's always kept me from RAID is having both copies in one box, which provides little protection against water/fire damage, or theft.
My current "off-site storage" is portable USB drives, but I eventually want to go to a second NAS box, tucked away at the other end of the building, doing nightly automated file sync.
My current "off-site storage" is portable USB drives, but I eventually want to go to a second NAS box, tucked away at the other end of the building, doing nightly automated file sync.
Up above I said sacd-ripper when I meant sacd_extract, but I guess the names are interchangeable. I've been using version 0.3.7, but when looking into the dsf clicking problem last night, I found a thread that said this was fixed in version 0.3.8. So I downloaded version 0.3.8 of sacd_extract at the github site and sure enough, in the changelog notes it says "- fixed a bug where a DSF export truncated sample data (Chuck Anderson)."
I haven't tried it out on dsf files yet, but thought I'd share the info.
I haven't tried it out on dsf files yet, but thought I'd share the info.
Similar threads
