It is not pointless at all. We take a strong stand against the type of argument and rationale you have put forward on these forums, and with good reason.
It is just your logic that opens the door wide enough for sharks to fleece people with snake oil like exotic cables and worse. Under your philosophy people can come to believe absolutely anything and do. G.K. Chesterton foretold it over a 100 years ago, when he said we are entering an age where people will believe anything.
What we argue for on these forums is for people to invest their hard earned cash where we know they will have a demonstrable improvement in quality and not an imagined one.
The fact is that in terms of linearity DSD is not superior to PCM. DSD is however less flexible, harder and more costly to implement. It is not nearly as useful as PCM. That is what we will tell people.
The harm comes in that perpetuating myths means manufacturers are encouraged to add DSD decoders when that money could be spent elsewhere to much greater benefit. And I can tell you receivers have many areas needing improvement.
Your point of view is not harmless and has gone a long way to preventing the many enjoying needed improvement.
That is why on these forums we come done hard on new members who preach your errant and harmful philosophy.
I would agree with you, if I went on a preached my philosophy to others. But I don't.
My logic is my logic because I have already gone through looking at demonstrated objective improvements, listened to them in my environments, and concluded that they mean squat to me.
I do not force this logic on others, nor do I use this frame of reference when giving advice to others for their purposes.
What I have a problem with is people coming in and telling me I cannot enjoy audio how I see fit, because it does not subscribe to some notion of external objectivity that should be shared by everyone for the greater good. Even just typing that up, I had to snicker at its sheer ridiculousness.
If I told you I don't care for linearity, that it's not a huge deal to me, regarding DSD and PCM, then what would you say? If you told me that most editing is done in PCM before converting to DSD and then I tell you, I still like DSD after A/B'ing them, then what would you say?
Demonstrated improvements have their place, but they cannot and should not be the end all be all recommendation for everyone, ESPECIALLY those who prefer the sub-optimal for subjective reasons!
Lastly, what is demonstrable to me, is what I perceive. That is clear as day. It is not what appears on a piece of paper, it is how I absorb the information that the piece of paper represents.
If I see all these test results showing no electrical improvement between regular cables and exotic ones, but I still believe exotic cables sound better to my ear after A/B'ing an installation (mainly due to psychoacoustics), who are you to tell me that I'm not enjoying the things I like properly?
If this sounds like me berating you, then it is. Get off your high horse.
This thread title is not, which is better, DSD or PCM. It is, how do I play multichannel DSF files over DLNA? You don't need to even pre-suppose which is better, DSD or PCM, in order to answer this question. This question doesn't even take into account why someone would want to do this, nevermind assuming it's for high fidelity reasons. For all you know, someone could just have one esoteric multichannel DSF file that has no PCM copy and would want to play it wirelessly over their home network.
So let's stay on topic, shall we? and save the DSD vs. PCM thread for when they actually appear.
Your point of view is not harmless and has gone a long way to preventing the many enjoying needed improvement.
FYI, when I first bought my receiver, I went and filtered out any receiver that did not support DSD. So a manufacturer would have (foolishly) lost my sale.
The vast majority of the needs of the many do not apply to me. Only my needs and some others' apply to me.
As much as I like Schiit DACs, I will not buy a system until they create another standalone DSD DAC that is the successor to the Loki. It is their operating model not to create DSD equipment just as it is my choice to not buy from them. There are other capable manufacturers that will get my money instead.