[cepart]

A well designed and executed DAC that is capped at 24/48 or even 16/44.1 will be vastly superior in performance to a poorly done DAC that handles any bit/sample rate.

The vast majority of high rez today is either native DSD or LPCM. DSD is a locked protocol with no way to get at that data without sophisticated and very expensive (read licensed) hardware. LPCM on the other hand has become the defacto hi rez standard* (online music files are available in native 24/96) of late although it depends if the recordings you buy are open and free or are encrypted and watermarked (similar to MLP used with the defunct DVD-Audio protocol). MLP is a locked loss-less compression scheme capable of 2 channel 24/192 LPCM or 5.1 channel 24/96 data streaming using either software or hardware decoders. I've spent a fair amount of time comparing hi rez to reference level redbook and I have to say that hi rez is certainly better but that gap is nowhere near as big as it once was. I believe we are in the "golden age" of redbook now (finally) so concentrating on 24/192 or 24/96 in dac that will never see DSD or LPCM data streams is somewhat counterproductive. OTOH there is a fair number of online e-tailers that are now selling hi rez music in unlocked PCM format. Unless you have a huge library (and there isn't much out there, I've looked) of free and clear hi rez music you should concentrate more on the build quality and sound signature of the DACs you are looking at rather than meaningless marketing bullet points. Almost all present day dacs will handle 24/96 via SPDIF/BNC/AES/EBU 110 ohm or TOSlink while a few will handle 24/192. If 99% of your library is 16/44.1 then you have a wide array of great choices to choose from (from used early 90's dacs to present). All of this is in my opinion of course

I hope this helps you sort out what is important and what is not....

Peete.

* It seems as though online specialty music shops have gone with free and clear LPCM but it remains to be seen what will happen with the new technology Blu Ray offers. Hopefully we will not see a repeat of the SACD/DVD-A mistakes with HD-Audio of Blue Ray.

Hi there! Thanks for the great sum-up. Now, I'm asking this in the year 2020 - is the situation the same as you described in 2009?
Additionally, wow well is Native Instruments - Komplete Audio 2 built, if I may ask?

 

[Quadfather]

With my equipment I noticed very little difference if any between 16bit/44.1kHz and 24bit/192kHz.
That's with my equipment and a pair of well used (old!) ears!
I wouldn't worry about the marketing claims, 24bits/96kHz IMO is more than enough!

I always get 96/24