DSD

[Jwg1749]

I may well not have , but if I understand correctly there is no way to manipulate a DSD stream.
This would be good for purist recordings, where the balance is achieved by moving a pair of microphones about, but AFAIK any multi track recording will not have been DSD from recording to disc.

My concern when I did the comparison was that DSD seemed to be a bit louder than PCM when recorded from the same analogue source, which obviously makes it sound better (and it did) but makes it almost impossible to do a real comparison since unless the level is matched to a very fine tolerance (0.1dB) the louder will sound better, even if level matched they are indistinguishable.
It is much easier to compare the various PCM files since they are easier to level match...

I think you're right about multi-track, but my (very imperfect) understanding is that some manipulation (e.g. EQ) can be done by converting the 1-bit DSD stream into an 8-bit format but retaining the original DSD sampling frequency (e.g. 2.8224 MHz, which is 8 times the max sampling frequency for PCM). This is then down-sampled back to 1-bit for mastering.