It's 2020, not 1990. I would get out and listen to some systems. Things have progressed considerably on the CD front.
This still is not a thread about CD players.
This still is not a thread about CD players.
It isn't the bits, it's the hardware
4.2
The question of whether hardware performance factors,possibly unidentified, as a function of sample rate selectively contribute to greater transparency at higher resolutions cannot be entirely eliminated.
Numerous advances of the last 15 years in the design of hardware and processing improve quality at all resolutions. A few, of many, examples: improvements to the modulators used in data conversion affecting timing jitter,bit depths (for headroom), dither availability, noise shaping and noise floors; improved asynchronous sample rate conversion (which involves separate clocks and conversion of rates that are not integer multiples); and improved digital interfaces and networks that isolate computer noise from sensitive DAC clocks, enabling better workstation monitoring as well as computer-based players. Converters currently list dynamic ranges up to∼122 dB (A/D) and 126–130 dB(D/A), which can benefit 24b signals.
erik_squires Given that the Mytek was better in all ways AND also had such a slim difference in performance I concluded that maybe the problem was not the data, as we have so often thought, but how well the DACs behaved with Redbook.That's certainly possible. There are some other variables - which some here have noted - including the synergy of the DACs and your subjective observation that the Mytek "was better in all ways." If upsampling works, at all, then it means the DAC does not perform equally at all resolutions. It has nothing to do with missing data.It isn't clear how you've made the leap from, "maybe the problem was not the data" to, "It has nothing to do with missing data." That upsampling can be useful doesn't necessarily mean that more data won't improve results. It's risky to form an absolute conclusion from just a single test. |
That upsampling can be useful doesn't necessarily mean that more data won't improve results. @cleeds But that's just it, with upsampling, you are not generating more data. There's no more clarity or resolution, or harmonics. There's not yet an AI that is listening to a trumpet and saaying "oh, I know how a trumpet sounds at 384k, I can fill in those gaps. " At best, upsampling is curve fitting. If we say that upsampling for a particular dac is a significant improvement, then it's not the data contents, because it is largely the same, it is how well the DAC chip performs with more of it. |
Not really a curve-fitting but okay to think about it that way. In a digital representation, the spectra is reflected around 0Hz, and the sampling rate. Oversampling shifts the effective sample rate so that the base spectra (which does not change), shifts from being centered around 44.1Khz to centered around 384Khz. Being say only 20Khz wide, a digital filter can easily remove most artifacts over 20Khz, with a simple analog filter taking out the rest. The other benefit is spreading out quantization noise reducing the noise floor. |