The Higher End
DSD/SACD: On Quality in Audio

David W. Robinson

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is for enough good men to do nothing… "

The tides of audio are moving — in several different directions, and all at once. This is no smooth and tranquil even flow; it is a wild and tempestuous collection of riptides, with treacherous undertows and mysterious eddies. Even the most experienced may perish in such conditions. It is not an exaggeration to say that the shape of our audio world is being shaped by these forces, and that the type of changes coming will cause fundamental shifts in how we experience audio reproduction.

The primary question for an true lover/connoisseur of audio and the music it conveys is simple: Where is quality to be found?

This is no matter of mere rhetoric.

This is no distant consideration.

This is the very heart and soul of art in audio.

Indifference to quality destroys all art, and withers the gifts that creativity brings to human existence. Audio is not immune to the need for passion about quality; indeed, as far as I can tell, there is no reason for so-called "high-end audio" (or, as I would prefer to call it, "fine audio") to exist at all, apart from this commitment to the finest and highest that audio can offer the human soul.

At this time, danger and opportunity have come to our doors a-knocking. They present several ways to us for our consideration:

First of all, there is the move to a more radical digital compression standard in MP3. The scenario? Let everyman use the rapidly developing paths of the Internet to act as a ferryman for his music. Sites like mp3.com would be our portals to downloadable tunes on hard disk; music would jump from site to site, site to user, and (via software like napster or gnutella) user to user in a giant peer-to-peer network over the Internet. (Quite the irony, that!)

Advocates of MP3 claim a greater democratization of music distribution, together with digital compression that is virtually indistiguishable from CD-level quality.

Eh?! And alas! Since when did audiophiles arrive at a consensus that standard 44.1kHz/16-bit PCM digital was a sufficient standard of quality to be a true "reference standard." Much less a "kid brother" standard that would further compress the already insufficient standard that we call Red Book PCM...

The main thing that would be squeezed in any such movement — no matter how "popular" it may be proclaimed — would be quality itself. I cannot believe that any audiophile who has listened to MP3’s (yes, I have), would mistake it for an acceptable level of audio achievement. It is to the real thing as a pocket radio is to a Magnum Dynalab....

Fortunately, it appears that the recent legal challenges to MP3’s distribution model will prevent its relatively low level of audio reproduction to become prevalent, a cause for rejoicing amongst true audiophiles.

Second, there has been the escalating movement to another compressed standard, Dolby Digital™ 5.1 surround sound. While I believe that there is much of merit in attempting to reproduce soundfields and not just soundstages, the use of digital compression and the PCM standard looms as yet another way to club audio quality into a submissive departure. At least DTS doesn’t use the compressive techniques to achieve sufficiency of bandwidth that real advances in audio quality require in the world of digital. DTS doesn’t look like providing the victuals on the table, though; there aren’t many titles available.

Third, 96kHz/"24-bit" and 192kHz/"24-bit" upsampled PCM have successively risen to claim the mantle of "the next significant advancement in digital audio." It is pleasant to see that digital compression schemes have been avoided, and that incremental improvements in audio reproduction have been made in these formats.

Nevertheless, the "fourth way" represented by DSD and SACD has put the question to any PCM format: When it comes to ultimate fidelity and quality in an audio format, is PCM now obsolete? And if, as I believe, the answer is "yes," then what must we audiophiles do to ensure the future of quality in our beloved audio sources?

Long listening to DSD/SACD, and extensive research among engineers in audio, has greatly deepened my conviction that the future of quality in fine audio lies in DSD mastering/re-mastering/archiving, and SACD pressings for mass release. The equipment is proliferating; SACD sales are strong; great anticipation awaits further releases of recordings in this wondrous format. And for those who long for excellence in surround sound, DSD/SACD will provide that, in full 6-channel glory, as well — as early as this fall!

It is clear to me that any audiophile who wishes to experience recordings at a level of real quality has two — and only two — formats: purchase LPs and a fine turntable, and purchase and support SACD players and recordings. (The truly wise and passionate person will do both!)

At the risk of being labeled "tiresome," I will repeat what I have been saying for nearly two years now: DSD/SACD give us "mic feeds and master tapes for the masses!" This is the first true advancement in audio sources since high speed half-track open reel tape recorders, which was (alas!) never a format that could be mass produced.

We who love fine audio have two choices: to support DSD/SACD strongly, or to suffer a slow decline into digital mediocrity.

Which really means that we have only one choice....

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