[sl33py]

Hi everybody!

So i've been a bit of a tinkerer for years now - appreciating how much good headphones helps since an old pair of SR60's (now some SR80i's, and Shure 535's). I love the SQ of the SR80's but love the airplane and work friendliness of IEM's (blocking external and everyone isn't listening to my music). And perhaps teh 535's aren't even considered "true" IEM's?

That aside - as i finally pulled the trigger on a Fiio Q5 (first portable), and playing with an old Bravo Audio tube amp for my desk - i've definitely tipped over a point and wanting to get better rips of some favorite songs/albums.

I grabbed some tracks from HDtracks and saw a slew of sample/bitrate FLACs - 44.1/16, 96/24, 192/24. So when i went to re-rip a few CD's with EAC and DBPoweramp - got a bit lost and seems like 44.1/16 seemed to be the limit.

I know source material matters and i'm unsure how much the CD has to offer, vs some of these super high bitrate albums possibly being from DVD audio perhaps?

I did some searching and likely missed the obvious... So any help or redirects to read and educate are really appreciated!

I've got oodles of storage and will listen to a mix of super hifi rips mixed with some other good 'ol mp3's. But will definitely actively search out some albums to re-rip hifi for travel (plane IEM's) or desk listening.

Any suggestions on rip settings to get the best from the CD would be great, and what is the max bitrate to extract best SQ from the album? Currently thinking DBPA as easiest vs EAC (still learning EAC and finding it challenging).

Thank you for the help!

(sorry for typo in subject 192/24 not 196/24)

 

[buke9]

CD’s are at 44khz 16 bit so need to encode more than that . You will not get better sound encoding at a higher bit rate .

 

[sl33py]

CD’s are at 44khz 16 bit so need to encode more than that . You will not get better sound encoding at a higher bit rate .

Thank you Buke9!

So in order to get a FLAC at higher - from DVD audio or what sources (that can reasonably be found/purchased)?

 

[johnnyb]

For your CD rips you'll be limited to 44.1 khz and 16 bit. That's the limit of the CD format, sometimes refered to as 'redbook'. There's obviously plenty of dynamics in that bitrate, and a good DAC can do wonders with it.

If you want to experiment with the sound, there are upsampling filters such as SOX available for your computer or player that will double or quadruple the sampling, smoothing out your listening experience. You don't have to store the file at this resolution, however. The upsampling can be done on the fly.

Note of course that this doesn't actually add anything that wasn't in the original source. And some don't like the smoothing effect at all, prefering the 16/44.1 source

 

[buke9]

Thank you Buke9!

So in order to get a FLAC at higher - from DVD audio or what sources (that can reasonably be found/purchased)?

Not for sure that you can rip DVD audio. It is 7.1 audio.

 

[sl33py]

For your CD rips you'll be limited to 44.1 khz and 16 bit. That's the limit of the CD format, sometimes refered to as 'redbook'. There's obviously plenty of dynamics in that bitrate, and a good DAC can do wonders with it.

If you want to experiment with the sound, there are upsampling filters such as SOX available for your computer or player that will double or quadruple the sampling, smoothing out your listening experience. You don't have to store the file at this resolution, however. The upsampling can be done on the fly.

Note of course that this doesn't actually add anything that wasn't in the original source. And some don't like the smoothing effect at all, prefering the 16/44.1 source

Thanks Johnnyb - that's really great info i hadn't seen. I think i'll re-rip some of my favorite CDs at 44.1/16 and call it good. I'll start digging deeper on the 96/24 files and try to figure out what is needed to get those. I'm pretty technical (hardware and PC's) so will eventually figure it out. I don't think i'll try any upsampling other than to test it and see if it helps, but figure what's there is what's there...

Appreciate everyone's quick response and info! super helpful.

 

[buonassi]

you'd be surprised how much detail there is at 16/44.1 if you have a chain that can process and resolve it.

The only benefit to upsampling a CD file is that you can alter the aliasing filter to your liking and bypass the oversampling filters in your DAC (most times). IE if your DAC is linear phase and you want minimum or intermediate phase aligned transients.