We released the details page on DirectStream which you can access here.
A number of you have asked me what the music is that has the cymbal the listeners were so enamored with in the video. It is Shelby Lynne’s title track from her 2008 release of Just a little lovin’. Right at the very beginning of the track a ride cymbal is struck (at least I think it’s a ride cymbal) and it has amazing clarity. On any PCM based DAC we’ve listened to this track on, the cymbal sounds real and correct. One would never think anything about it or question its sound.
But then play that same track back with DirectStream and that’s where the comments come from. Now you can tell the type of metal used in the making of the cymbal. Several listeners, more knowledgable than I in such matters, turned to me and proclaimed it a Zildjian cymbal. No doubt in their mind. On the PCM DACS it was just a cymbal. On DirectStream it was clearly a type of cymbal. I know no other way to describe what we’re hearing.
The point of all this is simple: if the decoding process of one type gives a consistent result that appears to either mask or not bring forth the information that another process unmasks and brings forth, then by default that information must be there in the first place. In other words, the information has been there all along.
How did that information get onto the CD we played if it was a PCM recording in the first place? Hard to say but we do know it was recorded in Capitol Studio’s Studio A in 2007. Here’s a list of what’s in there and I see immediately the dreaded Pro Tools suite that is certainly PCM based. But there’s a good chance that a modern A/D was used to master this album and that more than likely was DSD based (as are most modern A/D). But we don’t know.
What we do know is that there’s lots more on those discs of ours than we ever suspected.
