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About DSD

About DSD

A Passion for Authentic Sound

If you are tired of standard-quality music and want to hear live, recording-studio grade sound instead, NativeDSD is your one-stop shop. Listening to DSD files lets you discover details in the music you were never able to hear before.

Digital audio inputs on the back of a DSD DAC
Direct Stream Digital

What is DSD?

Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is a 1-bit, sigma-delta modulated audio format developed by Sony and Philips. Where PCM stores sound as multi-bit samples, DSD records it as a very fast stream of single bits: pulse-density modulation. Its first rate, DSD 64, is the format of the Super Audio CD.

Musicians and labels that record in DSD, DXD, analog or very high-rate PCM offer their original recordings at NativeDSD. You download them as .dsf files, tagged with full album information, and play them through your DAC (digital-to-analog converter) or DAP (digital audio player).

More: What is DSD · PDM and PCM explained

Pulse-density waveform of a 1-bit DSD signal
A 1-bit DSD signal: the density of the pulses follows the waveform.
Rates

DSD rates at a glance

Every album is offered in the rates it supports, in stereo and, where available, binaural or multichannel. Most listeners choose the highest rate their DAC accepts. Every DSD-capable DAC plays DSD 64; check the higher rates in our DSD Database.

DSD 642.8 MHz · 64× CD rate. Standard DSD, also used on Super Audio CD
DSD 1285.6 MHz · Double DSD
DSD 25611.2 MHz · Quad DSD
DSD 51222.4 MHz · Octa DSD

A small number of albums even come in DSD 1024. For convenience, albums are also available as FLAC (24-bit 96 kHz and 192 kHz), created from the DSD and DXD editions.
More: Choosing quality and channels · About DSD 512 · What is DXD?

High-resolution DSD and DXD

DSD is the New Analog

DSD is a carrier format: it captures the signal with so little in between that it comes closer to the master tape than any other digital format. Read why in our whitepaper.

Read the whitepaper

The warmth you remember from the master tape, captured uncompressed in its purest digital form.
Provenance

The ‘native’ in NativeDSD

“Native” means we source music files as early in the production process as possible. Unless stated otherwise, NativeDSD offers Edit Masters, taken from the session recordings, not files ripped from SACDs or other discs. The much-abused term “studio master” means little when a download comes from the same disc the consumer can buy.

This matters most for acoustic music, classical and jazz recorded in a real space, whose fragile low-level detail of instruments, space and dynamics lets you judge how real the performance sounds. Those recordings suffer most from every extra processing step, which is why we choose the earliest production stage possible.

More: The ‘native’ in NativeDSD · Provenance and production paths

Harmen Fraanje recording session for Just Listen Records
Harmen Fraanje recording session for Just Listen Records.
From microphone to your room

How a DSD album reaches you

1

Recording

Musicians in an acoustic space or studio, picked up by microphones, preamps and DSD analog-to-digital converters.

2

Post-production

Editing, and mixing either on an analog desk or in the DSD domain (Pure DSD) or in DXD. The result is the Edit Master.

3

NativeDSD

We receive the Edit Master directly from the label and prepare the download files without changing the music data, then tag them with full album information.

4

Your system

You download the rate and channels that fit your setup and play them through your DAC, as close to the original as possible.

Most other stores receive their DSD files as SACD or other disc images and rip them; whether that encoding is truly lossless is debated. We skip that step, and over half of our catalog isn’t available on SACD at all. More: What we mean by Pure DSD · Is all music recorded in DSD?

Channels

Stereo, binaural or multichannel

Stereo recordings use main microphones spaced like your loudspeakers, for a two-speaker system or headphones.

Binaural recordings are made with two microphones in the ears of a dummy head, such as the Neumann KU 100. They recreate what you would hear sitting at that spot, and sound best on headphones; on speakers they are perfectly fine, just without the full 3D effect.

Multichannel (5.0 or 5.1) albums need a system that plays file-based DSD surround.

More: Stereo and binaural · Multichannel listening

Binaural recording with a Neumann dummy head microphone
Playing DSD

What you need to play DSD

A player

A computer, music server or phone with player software that outputs .dsf files to your DAC, such as Roon, Audirvana, JRiver or HQPlayer.

Players in the DSD Database

A DAC

A digital-to-analog converter, connected by USB or network, that turns the DSD signal into analog sound. Check which rates yours accepts.

DACs in the DSD Database

Speakers or headphones

An amplifier with speakers, or headphones, fed by your DAC. Then sit back and listen.

Getting started guide

Hear it for yourself

Start with the NativeDSD Starter Pack: a 16-minute sampler of tracks in different musical styles, free in stereo DSD 64 and available up to DSD 512. Or browse the catalog.

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