Dr. David W. Robinson, Postive Feedback, and DSD

Our greatest and most important ambassador for high resolution DSD playback of music files may be Dr. David W. Robinson, audiophile and Editor-in-Chief of Positive Feedback, the famed online audio magazine based in Oregon.  David became a friend some years ago and his encouragement and downright insistence have inspired success for Yarlung Records in two distinct arenas.

First, David was one of the first and most important reviewers to write high-visibility articles on Yarlung’s releases on analog tape.  He fell in love with our SonoruS Series of recordings.

The SonoruS Series of analog tapes 

Second and more recently, David convinced us that he and his readers and listening friends around the world wanted access to the highest resolution digital transfers of these tapes, and that we needed to create 256fs[1] DSD files of this music, sampled at 11.2 megaherz, which is 4 times the speed of a Super Audio CD and 256 times the speed of a regular CD.

Not only did David generously ship his brand new Merging Technologies hardware and software to Yarlung Records to make these transfers, but he then connected Yarlung with his friend Jared Sacks, who runs NativeDSD.com in The Netherlands.  NativeDSD became Yarlung’s sole distributor for DSD downloads.

Yarlung Records at NativeDSD

Thanks to David’s vision, Yarlung was able to offer more music in 256fs resolution than any other label during our inaugural DSD season.  256fs DSD is growing by leaps and bounds, and Yarlung will soon be outnumbered by the giants in the recording industry.  This is a good thing, as these highest DSD resolution music files enable people around the world to connect to great music in a new way.  Our Yarlung “hegemony” has been fun, but it will be wonderful to witness the growing catalog as friends from other much larger record labels release their recordings into this market.

David’s review of Yarlung’s first DSD release, the exaSound Quartet 

Yarlung thanks exaSound,  Merging Technologies,  International Rectifier, PS Audio and Genesis for their generous support of our first 20 albums.  Three more quartets are in the works, and we will release them as soon as we can identify the right sponsors.  Stay tuned!

The Robert H. Levi review of The Genesis Quartet 

A huge Thank You to David Robinson for encouraging us to jump headfirst into the DSD world.  It’s fun to be here.  And thank you most of all to our musicians whose artistry and magic inspire us to find ever new ways to share your music with your fans.

–Bob Attiyeh, producer

 

[1] David Robinson pioneered the now ubiquitous term “Quad DSD” for this sampling rate