2012 IS the year of DSD on your PC (or Mac OS X, or *nix)!
There are commercial sources of DSD online, Multiple vendors supporting DSD over USB, mostly thanks to dCs for solidifying a standard way of easily adding cross-platform native DSD support. Plus the sacd-ripper project has created a way to create fair-use bit-perfect backups of your SACD's, allowing the building of music servers or collections of DSD audio, finally with the same freedom we are used to from CD's and DVD-A's. The Korg MR-2 Can be loaded with SACD's now, allowing iPod like freedom with DSD, this has been the last major hurdle to acceptance of DSD on a wider scale IMHO.
The exD Interface has been brought to my attention, available now in 3 versions, a PCM only version, a DXD/PCM version, and a DSD/DXD/PCM version. I have not yet tested this interface, but it seems to support the standard driver model as defined by dCs, allowing a good choice of compatible software.
Chiaki's sdtrans384, the newest incarnation of the legendary sdtrans192, support DSD files at up to DSD256! This is remarkable and makes it the first hobbyist DIY SD-card player capable of high speed DSD. Previously, the only commercial SD card player capable of DSD was the Korg MR-2, but it only supports up to 64fs (2.8Mhz). The sdtrans384has been given high praise in terms of sound quality, indeed the use of an sd card and dedicated hardware for playback is used as a means of minimizing jitter to levels below that obtainable with optical media or most USB interfaces...
The dCs standard for DSD over USB via packing into PCM samples, padded with 8 identifier bits, has seen more acceptance than any other consumer DSD driver model so far, with support from many hardware and software vendors, even across any platform. It does create an stream that must be stripped of the 8 padding bits with minimal jitter, no reports yet on any problems from processing.
This is just a report on the basic situation, if I missed any software or hardware please contact me and I will list it.
Software supporting the dCs standard:
External Articles on the dCs Standard:
Positive-Feedback: Announcing the DSD Open Standards Movement
The AudioBeat: DSD Over USB: An Open Standard
There are commercial sources of DSD online, Multiple vendors supporting DSD over USB, mostly thanks to dCs for solidifying a standard way of easily adding cross-platform native DSD support. Plus the sacd-ripper project has created a way to create fair-use bit-perfect backups of your SACD's, allowing the building of music servers or collections of DSD audio, finally with the same freedom we are used to from CD's and DVD-A's. The Korg MR-2 Can be loaded with SACD's now, allowing iPod like freedom with DSD, this has been the last major hurdle to acceptance of DSD on a wider scale IMHO.
The exD Interface has been brought to my attention, available now in 3 versions, a PCM only version, a DXD/PCM version, and a DSD/DXD/PCM version. I have not yet tested this interface, but it seems to support the standard driver model as defined by dCs, allowing a good choice of compatible software.
Chiaki's sdtrans384, the newest incarnation of the legendary sdtrans192, support DSD files at up to DSD256! This is remarkable and makes it the first hobbyist DIY SD-card player capable of high speed DSD. Previously, the only commercial SD card player capable of DSD was the Korg MR-2, but it only supports up to 64fs (2.8Mhz). The sdtrans384has been given high praise in terms of sound quality, indeed the use of an sd card and dedicated hardware for playback is used as a means of minimizing jitter to levels below that obtainable with optical media or most USB interfaces...
The dCs standard for DSD over USB via packing into PCM samples, padded with 8 identifier bits, has seen more acceptance than any other consumer DSD driver model so far, with support from many hardware and software vendors, even across any platform. It does create an stream that must be stripped of the 8 padding bits with minimal jitter, no reports yet on any problems from processing.
This is just a report on the basic situation, if I missed any software or hardware please contact me and I will list it.
Software supporting the dCs standard:
- mpd or music player daemon now supports the dCs packed DSD, from either DSF or DFF files. crossplatform and Open-Source
- Audirvana Plus supports DST (Lossless Compression for DSD) and SACD ISO files in addition to the standard DSD formats. OS X 10.6+
- Pure Music from ChannelD supports DSD and DXD, OS X 10.6+
- Sonic Studio Amarra supports DXD, DSD conversion to PCM in realtime, but possibly will support DSD native in the future.
- There are more coming every day!
- Mytek Stereo 192-DSD DAC converter, possibly only via "pro" version
- ExaU2I interface
- exD interface
- XMOS Reference USB Audio 2.0 Interface
- Meitner Audio MA-1
- dCs Scarlatti and Paganini
- Playback Designs MPD-5 DXD and DSD up to 6.1Mhz (128fs x 48Khz)
- others have been demoed, many options are coming.
External Articles on the dCs Standard:
Positive-Feedback: Announcing the DSD Open Standards Movement
The AudioBeat: DSD Over USB: An Open Standard
This site has no affiliation with any vendors mentioned, this information is provided to spread awareness of DSD.
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