16/48kHz vs 24/92khz vs 24/192kHz

[BentValve]

"The DAC1 is a two-channel, 24-bit, 96-kHz Digital-to-Analog audio converter. The DAC1 is perhaps one of the more significant recent advances in digital audio conversion technology. The DAC1 provides some of the finest analog conversion through 96-kHz, and will play back 192-kHz with a 48-kHz analog bandwidth."


This line is abit confusing to me because to be honest I dont really know much about sampling rates other than most of my , actually all of my CDs play back at 48Khz thru my Aragon Soundstages's DACs.

What does what? Do you CDs need to be higher bit rate or does your transport need to do something or what?

How does one use the 24/92Khz playback on the DAC1 and what is the 192Khz deal all about?


Somebody please break this down for me and help me understand, thanks.

 

[BentValve]

Edit: actually my Soundstage plays regular CDs back at 44.1kHz

 

[Mr.Radar]

16/44.1 is the sample rate of CDs. 24/96 is the sample rate of true high defenition DVD-A discs and you may see an improvement in the highs by resampling CDs up (though that's all subjective of course, and there is no scientific reason for that to occur). 24/192 is the maximum for stereo DVD-A discs and sounds even better than 24/96. The 48-KHz thing just means the DAC1 is incapable of decoding 192KHz at it's full 0-96KHz analog frequency range.

EDIT: I meant subjective, not objective. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[BentValve]

Thanks.

To be honest , the DACs in my Soundstage sound great and I have my doubts if the DAC1 will improve on them much.

The difference between the onboard DACs on my Denon 2900 and Aragon Soundstage are literally night and day in sound, I have A/Bed them many times with the SPL level calibrated.

I understand, so the CD dictates what the sampling frequency is. If that is the case then I cannot imaging ever needing the upgrade because I actually prefer the CD layer over the SACD layer on several of my SACDs.


What I dont understand is why a DVD-A set-up can take advantage of the DAC1..I mean the DVD-A processor has already converted the D to A already has it not?

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BentValve What I dont understand is why a DVD-A set-up can take advantage of the DAC1..I mean the DVD-A processor has already converted the D to A already has it not?

In most cases that's true, however unprotected DVD-A discs, or DVD-V discs with 24/96 PCM tracks can output through the digital out on the player to the DAC1 (the Benchmark DAC1 comes with a high res sampler disc that's in one of those formats).

 

[drminky]

>"and you may see an improvement in the highs by resampling CDs up (though that's all subjective of course, and there is no scientific reason for that to occur)"

AFAIK, there are real technical reasons why upsampling/oversampling can help the high frequencies. These are to do with the brickwall filter of cd players. When you up or oversample, the nasty digital artifacts from the brickwall filter (phase shift and group delay) are pushed up to higher frequencies out of the audible range. A filterless dac deals with these artifacts by leaving the filtering to the ear, so the digital garbage the filter is supposed to remove is supposedly out of the (consciously) audible range.

There are also good technical reasons why one form of upsampling or oversampling MIGHT sound better than another. Its all to do with the implemetation and the algorithms used to predict the resultant waveform shape. A simple illustration of this is upscaling an image in photoshop/shake/etc. using different filters will give you a dramatically different result. This is also one of the reasons using a cheap computer soundcard with selectable upsampling is NOT a definitive test of the virtues/drawbacks of upsampling to a particular frequency.

 

[boodi]

my cd player has switchable upsampling by stock .
The difference when upsampling is on is not night and day but it clearly do something to the music , smooth out everything ( the treble is the most noticeablething ) and make listening more easy and relaxing . Upsampling somewhat also diminuish the separation of instruments and :confued: probably also the bass weight tough , on my hd650 sourced by my shanling s100mkII ..and "take out" a bit of stage from some tracks .

I use upsampling on some cds , still taking time to decide wich i like the most .

 

[drminky]

actually, this is a case in point. From everything I've heard, the Shanling seems to be a fine cd player with an unimpressive upsampling implementation. Every review/user impression of this player I've read suggests upsample-off is the preferable setting on this machine. My trivista dac cannot turn upsampling off, but can switch between 96/192kHz and more upsampling sounds better than less..albeit very slightly..

 

[boodi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drminky the Shanling seems to be a fine cd player with an unimpressive upsampling implementation.

exactly what i feel , I'd say the same .
I'll try to write something about it , I didnt' found many reviews around before getting it .