MCD1100 + D150: An ideal combination?

[Charles]

Originally Posted by o0OBillO0o

@Charles...

Good points. I think the catch here is if one could detect the difference* between DSD and PCM. I support all music in all formats, but with classic rock albums or classical albums that are originally analog** it will be a tough head to head comparison.

Otherwise both are relevant and both are king.


*Using Jriver (mac/pc) and transcoded their DSD to high bit rate PCM "on the fly"/live OR transcoded offline from DSD to PCM using XLD (Mac).

**Analog Tape Tech specs

I hope I am not showing my lack of understanding. I thought downloadable DSD was equivalent to SACD. On the sites that sell both SACD is consistently about five dollars more expensive. If this is the case if you own an 1100, buy the SACD equivalent. There are advantages to possessing the physical disc as opposed to a computer file.

[o0OBillO0o]

@Charless...

I'm repeating what I read- so I don't confuse myself.

You related DSD files and SACD content are assumed to be like items- I think that's a good generalization. We'd have to determine the provenance of each recording. Of note, when files are Double DSD (and recorded originally as such) there could be differences (statistically).


You related that a physical copy or a SACD cost ~$5 more, and that having the disc is worth the cost for the benefit of the physical back up. - I agree.

[Solstice380]

Bill, I see that you are using JRiver. Have you tried HQPlayer on the Mac? Many people at the computer audiophile site (including myself) really prefer the sound from HQP over JRiver and Audirvana. Free trial is available. Minimalist interface but the computing engine is awesome. Will upsample to 512 DSD on the fly. Also will downsample, I believe, but never tried it. Before the D150 my Oppo 105D would take 128 in DoP format (same as D150).

[o0OBillO0o]

HQplayer is how much?

I don't have a DSD DAC that can handle 512 DSD, what should I get if I want to do that?

[Solstice380]

DSD DACs are a still a little bit of a "Wild West" area that's in exponential tech development. Currently they come in all flavors and price ranges. There are still some proprietary implementations of connection (PS Audio's I2S input as example), power supply noise control because of all the digital stuff happening in essentially a computer, and then there are the different software players. Sonore is a mfr. with a unique product called a renderer that can connect your DAC to your media storage drive on your home network - and they keep an updated list of DSD capable DACs on their website. Check it out. The DACs range from $150 models made in the USA (YES!) to $7K hand-wired in Poland killers. Some play both PCM and DSD, some don't. They use a range of DAC chips from the ones in the 100/150 to proprietary programmed FPGAs. A CD player/ DAC is just a specialized computer, after all.

All DACs utilize some kind of filtering and processing of the signal before sending it to the DAC chip. This alters the signal, but if you send a DAC chip the data in the DAC's native format -I2S or DSD are the same- it doesn't have to do any processing so has the potential to sound better. Another big issue is that all DAC implementations have an analog filter after the chip to take out noise. It's extremely difficult to implement a good filter for the waveform produced by a 44/16 signal. It's much, much easier for DSD's MHz frequencies. If you do check out HQ Player their manual has a great description of the different filters that are used.

Not much is recorded in all that high res yet, the most used res is now 192/24, but 384 DXD is on the rise. Almost our whole history of recorded audio is on tape and can be transferred to DSD and that's where most of the DSD discs come from. But, we consumers have huge investment in physical discs at 44/16. That makes a CD player do a lot of computing to get . The concept of HQ Player, and some others to a lesser extent, is to offload the filtering and processing to the host computer. The guys who write it come from pro audio in Finland at Signalyst. You can get background info and download at their website.

There are other good players out there, JRiver, Audirvana, iTunes with BitPerfect, that are a lot more straightforward to use but don't offer the capabilities of HQP. You have to see what works for you. One concern of us couch potatoes is the ability to control the player software / computer with an iPad app!

I am knee deep in refining a Mac Mini based computer music server setup. It's not nearly as good as my 150/450 combo (yet) but it was as good as the OPPO 105D, which IMHO is pretty good. I've got about 3X the $ into the Mac setup with external linear power supply over the OPPO but half that of the 150/450. Man do I love the 150/450!!! 😍

[o0OBillO0o]

Great response, but could you help answer my questions?

I am aware of the DSD DAC list, everything is on tape, and HQplayer and all of Miska posting on CA.

Use my iPhone in the car, sync'd with my iTunes and Bitperfect combo on an iMac at home. So far I have not found a product that has the same level of support and integration as the Apple Products. J River is great but I haven't figured out how to make the smart playlists work as well as I can with iTunes. I have my eye on HQplayer. Still now that TIDAL is out and the forth coming Roon Audio partnership, Metadata, storage, and headaches should be fewer.

in addition to my above questions, do you transcode all audio to DSD using J River? That's a big feature of HQ Player.

[Golucid]

Originally Posted by o0OBillO0o

Great response, but could you help answer my questions? I am aware of the DSD DAC list, everything is on tape, and HQplayer and all of Miska posting on CA. Use my iPhone in the car, sync'd with my iTunes and Bitperfect combo on an iMac at home. So far I have not found a product that has the same level of support and integration as the Apple Products. J River is great but I haven't figured out how to make the smart playlists work as well as I can with iTunes. I have my eye on HQplayer. Still now that TIDAL is out and the forth coming Roon Audio partnership, Metadata, storage, and headaches should be fewer. in addition to my above questions, do you transcode all audio to DSD using J River? That's a big feature of HQ Player.

Bill, is there a tie-in here that will make the MCD1100 and D150 and an ideal pairing?

[o0OBillO0o]

Originally Posted by o0OBillO0o

HQplayer is how much?

I don't have a DSD DAC that can handle 512 DSD, what should I get if I want to do that?

Originally Posted by Golucid

Bill, is there a tie-in here that will make the MCD1100 and D150 and an ideal pairing?

So on topic, HQPlayer can convert DSD or anything to play on the MCD1100 or D150.

I was probing for more information about HQplayer and how it would make the MCD1100 and D150 an ideal combo. (David- that's the tie in. )

Then I wanted to know more about this 512 DSD from Solstice. However, there was a follow up posting that , while informative did not answer the questions.

[Solstice380]

Apologies, Bill! I didn't mean to insult your intelligence or not answer your questions. Your previous post seemed like you were just starting into computer audio and I thought you could get the info you wanted from what I posted. My bad! To answer your questions directly, HQP is US$150. The free trial plays for 30 minutes at a time on a Mac and 30 days on a Windows machine. Try it! I use HQP and upsample everything to 128 for either the OPPO or 150. I can tell by your post above that you probably won't like the HQP interface LOL. You can drag iTunes playlists into it, though, and your good. I could never get past the sound quality of JRiver. We have resolving systems and the JRiver just didn't equal Audirvana or HQP. YMMV.

I think some of the Lampizator models and maybe the PS Audio DirectStream can go to 512, and a couple Korg models. The eXasound e22 does 256 and the iFi and Schiit products might. I do know from some sources that there will be some very interesting DACs coming out this year. 256 is the highest commercially available media at this time. But you can upsample! That is a limitation of the D150; taking only 128. Maybe a firmware update in the future???

I don't think the MCD1100 has the DIN output needed to send the DSD signal to the D150 (according to the McIntosh specs on the website). But, it seems that the MCD1100 uses pretty much the same DAC topology as the D150 so should sound similar to each other. You could play DSD discs on the 1100 and use the 150 as the DAC for a computer setup for DFF files. Otherwise, stick with the great sounding MCD1100. It will be a long time that I still want to play physical discs so I went with the 150/450 combo to play both discs and files. So for me, the 1100/150 would not be the ideal combo. If I already had a MCD1100 adding the 150 would work, but there is a lot of competition out there for $3K DACs.

I hope that covered what everybody was looking for!

Jay

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Golucid

Bill, is there a tie-in here that will make the MCD1100 and D150 and an ideal pairing?

I don't think they are an "ideal" paring. I never buy the 24/192 because it takes up too much hard drive and is significantly more expensive. So 24/384 is a total waste (for me). IMO, the sound quality is indistinguishable between 24/96 and 24/192. You are buying the 150 essentially to be able to download DSD which is essentially SACD. Everything available on DSD is available on SACD, which is at least the equal of DSD, IMO. I actually had a 150 ordered until I found my "Intro" button on my 1100 remote control. There are significant advantages to a one piece player that "does it all" like the 1100. But if you have the money and want to experiment, I'd buy the 150. High end audio is all about experimentation to see if, for example, there is a difference between SACD and DSD, or between the 1100 and the 150 DAC. It's rewarding, interesting, entertaining, and fun--what the high end is all about.