Do we really need anything greater than 24/96? Opinions?

@bifwynne 
I am surprised that you have no benefit from upsampling. Have you tried inserting an Insulator into your USB connection? Does your DAC have a BNC input for a master clock? Both of these might help in making it more audible.

@antigrunge2 - thanks.  I read most of the link which discusses Delta Sigma versus R2R DACs.  Can't say I understand it all, but I think I get the point.  That may be why the SQ from good LPs has a certain life and richness that is lacking in digital. 

I do not know how Delta Sigma or R2R relates to streaming music. Maybe the music feed is just binary data that the the DAC (be it Delta SIgma or R2R) translates into an analogue signal. 

So, ... if one is looking to stream, is it possible to look for a DAC of a particular architecture?        

16/44.1 can sound very good. In my car at least it sounds symphonic with TIDAL, although it helps to have a great system with active crossover speakers etc....But at home it can sound great as well.

A 24/96 DAD can sound incredible. But even with the most trained ears, I've been told it is very hard indeed to tell the difference between 24/96 and 24/192. So at least for me, 24/96 seems more than adequate.

@aberyclark,

"If one were to make one final version of a master tape and store away that Master for many years. What method would capture everything the tape had to offer so future engineers could use that new source as the master?"


Perhaps you would use metal (or gold plated) LPs like L Ron Hubbard was supposed to have done with his collected works.

Apparently he stored them away inside some mountain for some future civilisation to find in case our current one ends up destroying itself.

He might have used M Disc had it been available in his lifetime, given that it has a purported lifetime of 1000 years. However it is unlikely to be as easy to play back as metal LP might be.

Neither digital or tape would have much chance of surviving a holocaust.

Digital on tape is particularly vulnerable. Apparently thousands of digital recordings became useless very quickly after becoming prone to dropouts.

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Data storage lifespans: How long will media really last?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.storagecraft.com/data-storage-lifespan/amp/

Interesting replies. My audio engineering life has been with making amplification as transparent as possible. The more transparent the chain the greater the digital differences that can be heard. So I test out my work with music I have on a few discs that I know very well. Some redbook and some SACD.

For me, percussion and cymbals are the most telling of detail resolution. Shakers, gourds, cymbals have very complex non repetitive overtones that identify them as the instruments they are. Cymbals have sub-tones in the lower midrange that get lost in mixes, intentionally or otherwise. Since I’m also a professional musician (bass) I know their sounds from performing with them.

Orchestral violin blends are also difficult resolution tests. There are harmonics and sub-tones generated in performance that don’t do well in the digital domain at 44/16. But a jump to 24 bits helps and go to 88 or 96Khz and there is great relief from anticipating a colossal fight in the upper 2 octaves in complex passages.

I confess my CD collection was 99% issued before the turn of the millennium. Many are unlistenable on good gear other than for the music content. However some SACDs I have are truly enjoyable. RCA (Sony) reissue of Van Cliburn performances from 1958 and 1960 mastered from original tapes with no processing are a go to for me. First off it’s Van Cliburn. Second, it’s tape direct to disc 3 channel. The inner detail of orchestral passages is always surprising and a great relief to hear. Strings don’t fight with each other. I can hear tape artifacts, while not musical, are less unnatural and on the whole more enjoyable. It’s amazing what was done on an Ampex 3 track in 1958 with Neumann mics.

I also make recordings on a machine that records in 44.1/24 or 16. I hear a difference and 24 is better, no question. Much easier to mix, too. When I had a studio in NYC and recorded a barbershop quartet in 44.1/16 there were some chords that would produce some horrible digital artifacts, so much so that I actually had to mix them in the analogue domain.

Every opinion voiced here is shaped by the equipment the writers use. Some is more transparent than others. Some more forgiving than others. And some ears, better than others.

Which brings me to: EVERYTHING IS A FILTER. Cables, power source, amps, preamps, signal sources, cds, ADCs, DACs, records, streaming, speakers (huge filters), switches, tubes, transistors, op amps, tape machines, mixing boards, virtual mixing boards, rooms, the air in your room, florescent lights, led lighting, ear wax, aging, fatigue . . . Everything affects or alters perception.

Here’s another thing to consider. Upsampling is guesswork. Upsampling generates data that can only be a guess as to what happened between samples. Filters are, too. You pick the nicest sounding guesswork if granted that choice.

For easy math consider this: 44.1khz gives 2 samples of a 22khz event, 4 samples of a 11khz event, 8 samples of a 5.5khz event. There’s a lot of guess work needed to approximate the truth. That said, the brain does its best to fill in the missing pieces. That topic requires a treatise to explore.

My theory of listening and driving fatigue is that the mind is hungry for information. Like driving at night in fog, it's stressful because knowing where the road is is critical to survival. When listening, if you are used to hearing live un-amplified sound or great sound (hi fi) rich with detail and placement cues, the mind notices and strains to hear what is missing in lesser quality recordings or strains to filter out that which shouldn't be there, like harsh sibilants.

So a true 24 bit/ 44.1K recording, not from previously upsampled 16bit, reduces guess work and contains more truth. Double the sample rate and I would concur it becomes harder to discern differences with recordings with sample rates & bit depth above that. Harder but possible.

That said, I can hear file compression artifacts and I don’t use mp-anything for critical listening, AAC is less annoying but noticeable. Youtube is a crapshoot.

So answering the question that this thread is about, I’ll take 96/24 as a minimum for low anxiety critical listening, all remaining things being maximized to get out of the way.

That’s my $.02. Whatever happened to the cent sign that was on my Smith-Corona?