DoP isn't PCM

Ok, there's just too many TLAs going around here (Three Letter Acronyms). Engineers are obsessed with them because it makes for quicker communication of complex terms, and that makes sense, but what's a poor Audiophile to do? Recently I have been getting a lot of email questions about DoP (DSD over PCM) and most of the questions would suggest folks aren't understanding what DoP is. In fact, much of the mail I have been getting suggests folks think DoP is converting DSD to PCM (there's those pesky TLAs again). And the question that generally come from that partial misunderstanding is "I don't want to convert pure DSD to PCM, it'll change the way it sounds". Right. Wrong. Right that converting DSD to PCM changes the sound; and there's a group of folks that find DSD downsampled to PCM sounds better than DSD (as illogical as that sounds). I have personally heard examples of this "betterment" and while I too hear the improvements, I remain unconvinced this is anything but an anomaly we need to figure out. And then there's DirectStream that converts PCM to DSD and definitely sounds better for it. It's all so confusing. Wrong that DoP has been converted to PCM and that it will sound different than DSD; it isn't and doesn't. Tomorrow, let's take our time and get to know DoP a little better and gain an understanding of how it works and what's going on. See you tomorrow.