Wyred DACS

Bill,
Clearly you have done quite a bit of experimenting with USB and the higher bit/sampling rate options on DACS.

I received my DAC 2 yesterday, and have been doing a bit of experimenting. (options options..)

My library consists entirely of ripped CDs to FLAC and 24bit/96Khz from HD tracks.

I was experimenting with USB and USB bit rate settings.
I did initially set the PC output to USB 192khz, all worked fine of course.

In my case though since the maximum sampling rate of any of my library is 96khz, setting the USB comms to 192khz seems to be of no value. Why not just let the Sabre chip take the 96khz raw sampling rate and do it's thing.

At this point I'm back to running USB from PC at 96khz, only because it "seems" the best way to go.

I hope this makes sense, and I'd love to hear any comments you may have regarding this.

Hi Rayooo

I didn't check anything at 96k since 192k was available. I did notice a bit more detail with 192k up-sampling and native 192k was better again. Did'nt have 96k to check out but I would imagine up-sampling 96k to 192k would not be much if any better. However I would still do it. The reason I do up-sampling in J River rather than let the ESS DAC do it is the up-sampling algorithms in J River are state of the art right now while the up-sampling used in the ESS are not that recent and the DAC chip probably doesn't have the processing power of your PC which limits how good the up-sampling can be.

Thanks
Bill

I did a quick listen to 192 then switched down to 96. Really can't say I detected any difference, but I did not really listen enough to make that determination conclusively.

I was assuming as you state, all being equal in the upsampling technique, should be no difference. If however the upsampling at one end is better, then obviously there could be a benefit using one way vs the other.

thanks for confirming what I thought I was thinking. :)

Technically for the reasons I outlined I go 192k, but it would come as no surprise to me if 96k is just as good audibly. Actually I was just speaking to Eric Hider at dB Audio Labs the makers of the Tranquility and he says the best recordings he has ever heard were straight bog standard CD audio - but specially mastered direct from tape. High res is better but there is surprising quality to be found in bog standard 16 bit.

Thanks
Bill

YES! I've got a handful of standard CDs (some purchased many years ago) that are as good and some cases sound better than recordings I have on 96/24.

I have to laugh sometimes, the first Audio CD I ever purchased, 'had to be early 80's (Nightlfy, Donald Fagen) to this day is a better sounding recording than 80% of the CDs I've purchased since.

I shouldn't be laughing though, it's a tragedy that 80% of standard CDs I've purchased in 25+ years are pure crap sound quality wise.

PS I'm liking the W4SDAC2, 'seems to be a good match for CJ ET3SE. Only 15 or so hours on it thus far though.