I'm not even quite sure how to phrase my question, but here it goes...


So my DAC has LED's for 44, 96, 176 and so forth. I tried to get an understanding on how the different bit rates affect quality, but quickly became confused with bit depth, Flac files, Redbook and other terminology which all plays into the equation.
Can anyone point me to a dumb-down, digital for dummies kind of resource?
Thank you.
128x12861falcon
Um, the question is do you hear an improvement? :)

So, usually, 44 means 44.1 kHz/16 bits. That's the Redbook standard.
96 kHz music downloads are almost always 24 bits or 96/24

However!! online radio has some variations. 44/20 (or 44/24?)  and 96/16 are some I have seen.


What are you using to feed your Dac the streaming signal? A lot of streamers will show you the sample rate as you stream. Right now I am listening to Qobuz and on my streaming app the sampling rate shows as 44.1khz 16bit and hovers between 7-800 kbps.
61falcon,

I use QoBuz for streaming on my Aurender N10. The Aurender’s Conductor app shows each track / album resolution.

I did a trial of Amazon HD and it’s app interface and content were quite disappointing. They have a long ways to go. Since Deezer max out at 16bit/44.1kHz resolution, you can’t really compare unless you do a trial run with QoBuz. Tidal will only give you higher than 16bit/44.1 resolution if your DAC is capable of decoding MQA files.

If you choose do a trial run with QoBuz, you can then do a A/B comparison and decide for yourself if high resolution streaming is worth shelling out extra money.
In my system, QoBuz is the only streaming service that allows me to fully appreciate the high resolution content.
Jond:
I am streaming via Bluesound vault so I guess there is no way to see the bit count. 
Perhaps after I quit Amazon HD I'll try the free month subscription to Qobuz and see if I can detect the difference. 
Op
If you are streaming via the Vault you MUST be using some mobile app interface either on,phone or tablet, iPad etc.
Right there it should tell you the streaming information, i owned the Vault2 for a long time and it would tell me right on the Bluos app what the streaming quality was/is.

I do not remember if it was only displayed on the individual track info while it was playing but it should be there somewhere.