[5] Sony did not promote SACD actively in North America, with the result that DVD-Audio gained competitive traction in the market.

The label's Just Jobim by Manfredo Fest in 1998 was the first project captured with the new Meitner DSD conversion technology.

[9] The majority of Telarc International Corporation's releases were on (generally hybrid) SACD, and are DSD recordings.

The record label Mobile Fidelity had engineers who decided to adopt the SACD over the DVD-Audio disc as a favored high-resolution digital format after listening tests and technical evaluations.

[14][15] On September 4, 2013, Acoustic Sounds announced an agreement with Sony Music Entertainment to provide the company's new digital download service with albums that have been produced or remastered in DSD format.

[18][19] DSD differs from the PCM format used by compact disc or typical computer audio systems: while PCM uses a multi-bit value (representing a large range of amplitudes) at a low sample rate, DSD instead uses a single-bit value (representing an increase or decrease in amplitude) at a sample rate much higher than the signal's bandwidth.

[citation needed] The various DSD formats use sampling rates well into the megahertz (MHz) range, typically with an oversampling ratio that is a power of two relative to the 44.1 kHz rate used for CD audio: See delta-sigma modulation § Theoretical effective number of bits for analysis of the effective number of bits that can be achieved by oversampling, especially when using a higher order modulator.

DSD music mixing and mastering for SACD or Internet download presents challenges due to the difficulty of performing digital signal processing (DSP) operations (such as equalization, balance, panning) in a one-bit environment.

A format and set of tools for PCM processing of DSD has been developed under the name Digital eXtreme Definition (DXD).

Pyramix and some SADiE digital audio workstation (DAW) systems can operate in the DSD-wide domain.

[citation needed] DXD was initially developed for the Merging Technologies Pyramix workstation and introduced together with their Sphynx 2, AD/DA converter in 2004.

The Pyramix Virtual Studio Digital Audio Workstation allows for recording, editing and mastering all DSD formats up to DSD256.

DSD128, 5.6448 MHz, twice the SACD rate, has been supported by multiple hardware devices such as the exaSound e20 Mk II DA,C[24] Korg MR-1000 1-bit digital recorder, Amanero Combo384 DSD output adapter and the discontinued exaU2I USB to I²S interface.

Software supporting DSD includes Sonic Studio's Amarra Luxe, Audirvana, foobar2000 with SACD plugin, JRiver Media Center, Roon,[25] HQPlayer and Neutron Music Player are all able to handle DSD files of up to DSD512 rate fully natively.

Such discs can be played back in native DSD only on certain Sony VAIO laptops and PlayStation 3 systems.

In 2000, Lipshitz and Vanderkooy stated that one-bit converters, as employed by DSD, are unsuitable for high-end applications due to their high distortion.

[35] Stuart also defined sigma-delta modulation a "totally unsuitable choice" for high-resolution digital audio.

Oversampling converters are usually used in linear PCM formats, where the ADC or DAC output is subject to bandlimiting and dithering.

Comparisons of DSD and PCM recordings with the same origin, number of channels and similar bandwidth and noise have yielded contradictory results.

A 2004 study conducted at the Erich-Thienhaus Institute in Detmold, Germany found that in double-blind tests "hardly any of the subjects could make a reproducible distinction between the two encoding systems.

[44] The format supports DST compression of the payload as well as annotations used in Super Audio CD production.

For example, markers indicating the beginning of a new audio track have a text field for storing arbitrary text-based information.

A de facto standard for including ID3 metadata in an unofficial ID3 chunk was later developed as consumers adopted the format for storing individual tracks of DSD audio.

[46] Wideband Single-bit Data (WSD) is a native DSD file format developed by 1-bit Audio Consortium in 2002.

[53][54] The format is intended for storing individual tracks of DSD audio and has native support for ID3 metadata inclusion.

[46] Since WavPack supports multiple formats, the suffix or mime type alone does not indicate the presence of DSD audio.

While DoP is intended to be a wire protocol used for communication between music player application and a DAC, there exists tools that can embed DoP-encoded DSD into FLAC files enabling users to use a non-DSD capable player for DSD playback with their DoP-capable DAC.