There are too many old DSD threads to pick and link a particularly complete one, but I am sure you will find all answers in one of these:
https://community.naimaudio.com/search?context=topic&context_id=24359&q=dsd&skip_context=true
ND5XS2 supports DSD over PCM (DoP).
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Hi @Suedkiez . Just a question because I had a notification from you asking to close a thread. But as it’s closed now, I don’t know which thread it was and what was the problem. Sorry for the diversion.
I haven’t asked to close a thread. I remember that one of these days I linked one of your posts/threads as part of the answer in one of my replies to someone else, and you receive a notification from the forum if someone links your post/thread. I can only guess that this is what happened, but I can’t remember which of my posts that was and can’t find it.
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Native DSD, here you will find a catalogue of albums that you can download in various formats including DSD upto 128
Ah, it was this one and it was today. Someone had opened a new thread about the same topic, so I posted a link to yours and then Richard merged the new thread into your existing one and closed the new thread.
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For anyone unaware the Norwegian site 2L has a ‘test bench’ page (www.2l.no/hires) which offers a very useful (and free) set of recordings of a number of different styles, all derived from original recordings made by them. As well as the original DXD, they are available if a range of resolutions, from 16/44 to 24/352 …and DSD at 3 different sample rates. (Also MQA.) Anyone interested can therefore compare and see what differences they can hear.
DSD doesn’t seem to be readily available, so I haven’t bothered investigating myself.
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Ah thanks Suedkiez. Kind of you to have bothered to find. 
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Yes ta, my new ifi dac does dsd and mqa and I have some dsd recordings so I’ll give that a look. Not having tidal I’ve never heard mqa so maybe worth a listen to see what it’s about
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I’ve certainly used it as a format for recording from vinyl, especially stuff that has a high value or that is likely to be difficult to replace.
I did a few sentimental cassettes as well, I found it gave favourable results from analogue sources.
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Have some 774 DSD albums in my library.
762 are DSD64, and mainly come from SACD rips
9 are DSD128 and 5 DSD256, but these formats are only playable with Roon, which downconverts them to DSD64 and supplied as a DoP stream over UPnP to the NDS via SonoreUPnP bridge.
Roon has also convert directly to PCM 24/176.4 before submitting to the NDS as a PCM stream over UPnP.
I can also pass to the NDS over a S/PDIF but only a PCM stream seems to work. However the S/PDIF format comes with its own limitations.
However, I believe the DoP stream via UPnP is a better SQ than a pre-converted PCM stream over UPnP, which in turn is better than the PCM stream over S/PDIF.
That’s a lot of DSD albums Simon !
You ever tried any native DSD DACs and compared with the NDS?
I downloaded a DSD album, also available in 24 bit PCM on Qobuz .
To be honest i would be delighted with either, there was a very small difference, which may have been more to do with volume than anything else, the DSD being slightly quieter but both versions are excellent
This with the ND5XS2 spidif output set to native into my DAC. Set to PCM the DCS recording sounded grainy. I guess because of the conversion in the Naim
The Wikipedia entry on DSD is a good source of information on the format as a whole, but rather than the technical discussion, the one of availability really makes the decision for you.
Namely, this is a fringe format available on select recordings, and more common on certain genres of music than others. The idea that you can go out and shop for music online or even physical media and actually choose between DSD and an alternative is still fantasy. That choice appears as often as finding a blue lobster. i.e. it’s quite rare. It might seem more mainstream.
Out of a thousand albums in my collection, exactly 2 are DSD.
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I have not, as happy with sound of the NDS, in a Roon-based system with a UPnP stream on the Ethernet input.
Running one 555DR PSU to the NDS, maybe a 2nd would add something more, but that’s a lot of $ to then only use half of the PSU in each.
Re. DSD albums yes it, but don’t worry I have also have 3,285 albums in PCM 24-bit format. In fact something like 62% of my library is HiRes.
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It’s a good example of a format that didn’t translate from the professional recording industry to domestic at scale.
Primarily the mass market are driven by cost (meaning affordable, which round these parts can mean anything up to super yacht levels of cost, I digress) and ease of use. It also has to solve a problem such as in this case performing in some way better than alternatives.
I like what it offers and listen to recordings in DSD format occassionally as well as using it in a prosumer fashion for archival of analogue formats, it’s easy enough to accomodate it in hardware for playback but given the high production costs and lack of scale and desirability with consumers remains a niche for specific genres and recording scenarios (usually live and with real instuments so basically classical or jazz)
DSD is a simple format but not very popular even in pro-circles as it is very impractical to edit or eq etc. To do any of these operations it is normally converted to PCM and then back to DSD again.
The other bad news is that it is a noisy format as used with SACD-disks (DSD64). This is handled with noise shaping, moving the noise mostly up above 20kHz (which may or may not be well handled by your amps). I fact SACD/DSD64 are said to be worse than CD:s at high frequencies.
This means you cannot brickwall-compress the music as you can with a CD which I think most see as an advantage. On the other hand this noise is also often subjectively heard as brightness. My personal take is I rather have upper frequency noise than over-compressed music so I still buy SACD:s and rip.
As an aside, in the old analog days adding signal dependent noise was used as a mixing trick to make your mix sound brighter and stand-out on the radio (escpecially AM). As an example I have been told Abba used this trick in radio-mixes.
If you want to hear how good DSD actually can sound - go for DSD128 or even better DSD256 and music that can be handled without edits.
I use DSD, but as SACDs. These I play on a player that has two ‘processors’; one for PCM and a separate true 1 bit processor for DSD. Naim use DoP as far as I can tell and therein is the problem. If you want to hear what DSD can do then you need to use a dedicated 1 bit DAC.
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Ah! My Holo DAC has a separate DSD dac built in. Somehow utilising an R2R network
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I’m using a Holo Audio DAC and play DSD files natively - not DOP - from an external SSD via USB. I have ripped all my SACDs and buy DSD downloads from High Definition Tape Transfers, Native DSD and Blue Coast Music. Played natively DSD is imho the best sound source available and the Holo Audio’s DSD DAC is superb.
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