DSD Vs. PCM
There has been much controversy between proponents of DSD and PCM over which encoding system is superior. Professors Stanley Lipshitz and John Vanderkooy from the University of Waterloo, in Audio Engineering Society Convention Paper 5395 (2001), stated that 1-bit converters (as employed by DSD) are unsuitable for high-end applications due to their high distortion. Even 8-bit, four-times-oversampled PCM with noise shaping, proper dithering and half data rate of DSD has better noise floor and frequency response. However, in 2002, Philips published a convention paper arguing against this in Convention Paper 5616. Lipshitz and Vanderkooy's paper has been criticized in detail by Professor Jamie Angus at an Audio Engineering Society presentation in Convention Paper 5619. Lipshitz and Vanderkooy responded in Convention Paper 5620.
When comparing a DSD and PCM recording of the same origin, the same number of channels and similar bandwidth/SNR, some still think that there are differences. A study conducted at the Erik-Thienhaus Institute in Detmold, Germany, seems to contradict this, concluding that "hardly any of the subjects could make a reproducible distinction between the two encoding systems. Hence it may be concluded that no significant differences are audible."
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