TomDuffy
There are more aspects to DSD that are all important.   It's easy to pick on the first one and say "but that doesn't matter".
 
Signals can go over PCM 0dBFS - that makes it less important to do brick wall limiting during the mastering, and Tom Duffy (TASCAM)

Tom: Excellent post - can you guide me where to better understand what is actually distinct between DSD and PCM's Full Scale treatment.  That is very interesting to me.  To clarify - 99% of my work is classical music - as you know DSD has been around in that space for years. Somehow I never encountered the Full Scale difference.  Thanks in advance for any info you can direct me to.
Best
 
D

At this point in time DSD is the perfect way to convert your old analog multitrack into a digital format. Wich then can be used for what ever mixdown is needed (DVD BLUE RAY, High res Youtube.... future high res formats). Korg and Tascam make affordable DSD recorders. Once Sony requested Tascam to create a DSD recorder based on their famous 8 track digital (DTRS) recorders (DS-D98). This recorder could track two tracks of DSD. So to record the Eagles they daisy chained a bunch of these recorders to create one multi tracker.
 
PCM audio at 96 khz gives 96/2= 48khz sinewave. So twice what the human ear seems to be able to notice. A perfectly calibrated analog (Studer) multitracker was able to record up to 50khz (on a good day). So DSD seems to be an awesome way to use to transfer the great recordings from yesteryear. 
 
Philips got out the DSD train many moons ago. Sony Oxford was sold to Midas/Klark Teknik. Wich is now owned by Behringer. DSD usually was processed with analog processing. So after D/A and back to A/D. There are two DAW's who seem to be able to work in DSD but this has been very experimental to say the least. Philips made the Mykerinos card for this. But the advances made in the PCM world make it for an experimental format for multi tracking and processing at this point in time. 
 
If you multi track right now in PCM at 96khz you will have a waay cleaner signal than you could in the analog domain. So if you have a multi tracked DSD format.... Then what? So currently PCM recording is the way to go. And the fact that Sonar supports im and export of DSD is incredible. There is however an area where DSD shines. And that's in nature recording. If you want to capture the sound of an earthquake of the sounds of whale talking to another whale and stepping down that sound into the audible range people can hear the signal in order to interpret it. Sonar now can be of assistance... Wich... is absolutely awesome for sound effects or research... 
 
This is what I learned along the way while gathering useless information :))
Two DSD mobile recorders (wich timelock) and a SOUNDFIELD (quadrafonic microphone) would be an ideal sound effect field recorder for 5.1 movies in the I-max format.

Very cool and informative thread w/o going all "mathy" on it. 
 
I think it is the Tascam stereo units (or maybe the Korg) could be synced together - 4 of them or so.  But it was "all at once," so you couldn't us them like a multitrack and overdub on one unit after recording.
 
I'm just wondering if there is any possible synergy between Tascam DSD and SONAR.  Cake seems heading there with DSD importing.  And they went up to 384 kHz before being bought by Gibson, if I recall.  No company talks about what they are going to do next, but it sure seems like Cake is putting in some effort in hi-rez audio formats.  Why is a question.
 
@

Still going to have a ceiling. Everything has a ceiling. What may end the loudness war is EBU R128 and the CALM Act.

I'm a little skeptical of it quality wise vs. good PCM these days just because good multi-bit converters do such a good job. You can kinda see it in specs like if you look at the DA-3000: It gets better SNR in PCM mode than in DSD mode. Not that it matters much, you are talking extremely clean signals either way, but still.
 
Though who knows, maybe a hybrid will develop. Nothing says you have to do a pure PDM stream. You could have a high frequency 4-bit converter and store that bitstream straight, rather than converting it to 24-bit at a lower sample rate.

Philips had a special designteam on DSD. After a while they started to call it Protec or something like that. There has allso been a 48 track DSD recorder. It was called a Genex GX9048. But after you had captured it you only could mix out analog of off it. At a time all major studios were running Protools. No longer setup to work with analog feeds... Engineers who were not really seeing the potential. 
 
PC's have become very powerfull. So maybe there will be a new product in the future. The conversion to DXD is a great way to fly. So for now you will know you will have a piece of software wich will be able to take the heat. And has been ready for it since severall versions.... 
 
Sonar has one other trick up it's sleeve. It can work with 64bit audio files. and be THAT accurate.... And together with stuff like the FREEZE option on all tracks you can allways target your cpu power on the next target.... So even a moderate pc nowadays could be of use in what will be a heavey lift....  (24 bit 384 khz (DXD = what DSD to PCM conversion would give)

What am I missing? Do I need a 1-bit DSD DAC between Sonar and my file output, as it keeps crashing for me.
 

I concur.
 
Sonar will import DSD audio, but convert it to whatever your project is set to.
 
I just did a quick import from Native DSD (https://www.nativedsd.com/) of a new 64fs sample track, and with my project set for 88.1kHz, 24-bit - and that's what Sonar converted it to. (iZotope's RX confirmed the converted track's sample rate and bit depth.)
 
So to actually play the file in the native DSD format, you will need a player with that feature.
As previously mentioned, the Pono player plays DSD native (.dsd/.dsf) formats, which sound amazing for a portable player. (Other portable players with DSD capability can be found, as well as plenty of high-end "home stereo" units.)
 
The sound, I feel, is as close to analog as you can get.
 
But even without a player - it's a great archival format.
 
The "Info" tab on the Native DSD site has a great "About DSD" primer that's worth a glance, and Ayre mentioned in my previous post also has some great info.
 
Cheers,
MG

The problem is, the file render gets to the end and before converting the TMP file, Sonar crashes. Would it not be the case I need to use a DAC capable of the high-sample rate? I have a portable player which can playback 1-bit DAC?
 
My sound device can do 192K/24-bit so sample rate shouldn't be a major issue?! Or will it be? I just need a straight answer.
 

Can someone explain why DSD is exciting?

^To the OP. I suppose it could be because of this:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=DSD
 
Wait! Sonar contains one of these?!! How do we get it out?

If can ever get this working, it may mean DSD can be used for bit-perfect recordings until further rendering to other sample rates. I have a feeling recordings already in another format may be a wasted effort if DSD adds nothing new or relevant to the sound.
 

Hi I looked at the crash dump you sent me.
Its crashing in an illegal SSE2 instruction. Also you appear to be running Braintree which is quite old :)
What are your CPU specs? DSD encoding requires a CPU with full SSE2 support.

This Utlity will tell you if your CPU is running SSE2

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

AMD 880g is a MOBO chipset not a CPU.

Hmm that CPU should definitely have full SSE2 support since its fairly recent.
The version of SONAR that generated the crash however is 21.2.0.21 which is Braintree and not Everett however so either you have not fully updated or you ran a different version somehow. What does Command center say?
 
Anyway I've sent the info to TASCAM as well.
 

interpolated
Hi Noel,
 
http://products.amd.com/pages/desktopcpudetail.aspx?id=640&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
 
CPU Specification 
AMD 880G Chipset
 
Sonar version 21.4.00 BUILD 27
 

Still the same and I can confirm on 3 occasions that it reported the Everett edition and taking off cool'n'quiet never helped.