[fiddler]

Ok, so I just bought an M-Audio Sonica recently for my iBook.

I just started playing with the settings today (using this on a Mac, BTW), changing between 44.1khz/16bit and 24/96..

And I'm hearing a REALLY significant difference..

First of all, soundstage has so much more depth; without upsampling the sound becomes compressed and flat in comparison. And in general, upsampling seems to give the sound seems to have more weight, more moisture, and most noticeably, more air.

God, am I imagining these differences? I'm just playing a CD at the moment... Upsampling, to me, makes the music more cohesive, more rounded, and much more involving and enjoyable.

Sonica owners, any input? Man, I wish this was hype but I'm hearing a CLEAR difference here.. So far I haven't read anything that clearly explains why upsampling makes a difference?

 

[lan]

I've never tried upsampling on a Mac. What program do you use? The quality also depends on the algorithm used to upsample.

 

[fiddler]

OS X's built-in Audio MIDI Setup app has the option to change sampling rate/bit depth.

 

[fiddler]

Man, i HOPE upsampling is what it's doing, because otherwise I'd look like an utter fool.

Paging Mac users for input...

 

[br--]

How would you upsample in foobar 2000?

 

[kyrie]

I've noticed that upsampling on Foobar2k (done by applying the resample filter) has a quite noticeable, positive effect on the sound. With upsampling music sounds smoother and more natural - I don't see why, but it does.

 

[Glassman]

its becouse Resampler does very high precision math in comparison with DACs internal digital filters, which oversample too at least eight times if not more, but interpolation calculations are done with far lower precision, so quality resampling in software is de facto altering the DACs digital filters.. look what Wadia does - they override digital filters completely and rather program high performance DSP to do the interpolation with maximal precision..

 

[ls20]

personally, upsampling through foobar w/ my m-audio made no difference to me

perhaps my d66 may bring out the differences in details and soundstage...but i couldnt hear anything with the akg

 

[blessingx]

I just did a few samples using M-Audio's Audiophile USB control panel in OS X's Sys Prefs (had left it on 24/96 since installing), and indeed there is a difference in soundstage and overall airiness between 16/48 and 24/96.

 

[elrod-tom]

I've not done much with it in the computer realm, but it makes a HUGE difference in my home rig. Going from 16/44.1 to 24/96 is a huge difference, adding to soundstage and taking away much of the harshness that I associate with CD's. Go from there to 24/192 and it's just insane how much difference it makes.

 

[Intrigue]

takes up lot of space, i was told. does any one know how many times (of space) roughly?
how about a step by step guide in doing a proper upsampling?

 

[JeffL]

Quote:

Originally posted by Intrigue takes up lot of space, i was told. does any one know how many times (of space) roughly? how about a step by step guide in doing a proper upsampling?

It doesn't take up any more space than HDD space to store the audio files. Upsampling takes up CPU power though. It depends on the algorithm how much power the upsampler requires.

 

[lan]

Well there is upsampling done in real time by a chip or software OR you can do it in non real time using an audio program. I've found that they all have different results.

 

[TheMuffinMan_01]

get someone to blind test you then get back to me.

 

[Elec]

I can't get my Winamp (5) ASIO plugin to upsample any higher than 48kHz. It's the latest one, and it works fine with resampling off or set to 48kHz and TOP quality, but anything higher (96 or 192kHz are what I'd like) it just doesn't play. I have an Audigy2. Anybody else run across this or know why it's doing this? I suspect it's something to do with the plugin, since I recall using an older version and having it simply NOT work, then discovering later that it actually did work to some degree. I'll have to download foobar (again, ugh) and see how that upsampling sounds .