[Gatecrasher]

Im looking for a desktop amp/dac that will run my Sennheiser hd 598 at 192Khz, and USB is my only option I have to connect to a AMP/DAC, however all desktop AMP/DAC amps all seem to cap out at 96Khz.  Is that simply because USB does not support 192Khz, or is it only in high end AMP/DACs?    
 
Im new to this, please be gentle.  

 

[fjrabon]

USB class 1 only supports up to 96 kHz.  USB class 2 supports all current audio formats, including DSD.  I don't know a complete list of desktop DACs that support class 2 USB, but I know my m9XX does, as do all of Schiit's DACs other than the Fulla and Modi2 (Modi2 Uber does support Class 2, and thus 192kHz)..  Some DAC makers don't use USB class 2 because they inevitably get complaints that it won't work on their windows computers, because Windows is terrible and requires driver downloads for USB class 2.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatecrasher /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Im looking for a desktop amp/dac that will run my Sennheiser hd 598 at 192Khz...

 

First off, you do not "run" a headphone "at 192khz," or any sampling frequency for that matter. You "run" a transducer like a headphone or speaker with an electrical signal measured in Watts, or in the case of headphones if we're splitting hairs on this, fractions of it - mW. The sampling frequency has to do with how the digital data is processed into 

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatecrasher /img/forum/go_quote.gif

...and USB is my only option I have to connect to a AMP/DAC, however all desktop AMP/DAC amps all seem to cap out at 96Khz.  Is that simply because USB does not support 192Khz, or is it only in high end AMP/DACs? 

 

AFAIK it has to do with the limitations of the USB chips used; afaik there are some that run 32bit/192khz. Here's the problem - you don't actually see more than a handful of audio files a over 24/96, which is what nearly all studios use, hence most manufacturers don't see the need to run with the more expensive chips that can work with anything higher than that. In most cases it just uses a chip to upsample the file, but in reality on the fly resampling has a good risk of just adding noise. There was an old white paper back when this was a hit with CDPs that found there were audible differences between 16/44.1 and running upsampling to 24/192, but surprise, they were due to errors during signal processing.

 

So unless your files are natively 24/192 there's really no need for this. Alternately if you ended up buying 24/192 files you can just convert the track to 24/96 using Foobar, just make sure you manage the files (ie do not overwrite the 24/192).

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Im looking for a desktop amp/dac that will run my Sennheiser hd 598 at 192Khz, and USB is my only option I have to connect to a AMP/DAC, however all desktop AMP/DAC amps all seem to cap out at 96Khz.  Is that simply because USB does not support 192Khz, or is it only in high end AMP/DACs?    
 
I'm new to this, please be gentle.  

 
Do you even have any audio sources that are 24-bit/192K?
CD-audio is only 16-bit/44.1K.

 

[Gatecrasher]

Thanks everyone!