Linn support for DSD

[DavidHB]

(02-12-2017 12:08)ac16161 Wrote:  I've never given much attention to DSD given I'm in the Linn world, but presumably if you buy in to the idea that DSD has inherent advantages, then wouldn't transcoding it to PCM before it gets to the DAC rather negate the alleged benefit that DSD is supposed to offer, if the DAC is capable of playing DSD audio without pre-conversion?

You will find that this is all discussed at inordinate length on this thread, which has been running for the last four years on the Linn forum. The Linn team thought that DSD was a bad idea in 2013. They still think it is a bad (and essentially unnecessary) idea in 2017, but are prepared to support it because the DAC in their (Klimax level) Katalyst players can provide the support (in a limited form, because of the limitations of the DSD format) with only a relatively minor software change that does not affect the other capabilities of the device, and because DSD has a bit of traction in some markets.

(02-12-2017 12:08)ac16161 Wrote:  I have the impression that the Katalyst DAC is probably doing its own conversion anyway, but need to go back and re-read the posts from the Linn staffers (by the way, I just love Linn for allowing their tech bods to post on their forum).

DSD is actually directly rendered in the DAC; there is no conversion. Hence the limitations described in my previous post.

All of this is pretty academic for most of us, I guess. I don't see myself using a format other than FLAC any time soon. But is is a good illustration of the way in which folk can get themselves excited about narrow (and to most people irrelevant) technical issues.

David