Focus on 24/192 Misguided?.....

04-20-12: Kijanki
Al, On one hand he has whole chapter titled "192kHz considered harmful" describing harm that 192kHz can do to amplifiers and speakers to later say this about oversampling:......

Kijanki, all that the author is saying is that when sampling at higher freq like 96KHz or 192KHz, you get intermodulation products that fold down into the 20-20K audio band due to typical preamp, power amp bandwidth limitations of not being able to reproduce higher freq products distortion-free i.e. due to the non-linearities of the electronics. And, systems having smaller bandwidths have the situation worse in that the probability that they'll amplify the high freq signals is much higher. So, the point is that if you do not sample at 96K or 192K you won't have these higher freq intermod products, they won't fold down into 20-20K & your preamp/power amp will not amplify them due to its non-linearity.

it's clear to see that if a 96K or 192K sampled signal is downsampled to 48KHz then the anti-aliasing filter will cut off all these high freq intermod products. So, according to the author, since this signal is free of any ultrasonic content, it's safer to playback with the idea that distortion products due to ultrasonics are not being played back.

I do not think that it's unreasonable to say that ultrasonics created due to higher freq sampling can create in-band intermod products that can be amplified by the non-linearities of the playback electronics & that they are harmful to the playback listening pleasure.

I don't think that the author should have labeled the paragraph as "192KHz considered harmful". People like Kijanki have read this literally thinking that the very act of sampling at 192KHz is harmful. No, I don't think that the very act is harmful; it's those ultrasonics folded down & amplified that are harmful.....

Suppose we want to compare the fidelity of 48kHz sampling to a 192kHz source sample. A typical way is to downsample from 192kHz to 48kHz, upsample it back to 192kHz, and then compare it to the original 192kHz sample in an ABX test [21].

Al, Kijanki: I *think* that I might know what the author is intending to say here: To do an A/B comparison, the author would like to level the playing field. Thus, he does not want to use the original 192KHz signal as-is. What he wants to do is downsample on-the-fly the 192KHz signal to 48KHz & create signal A. Then, upsample this 48KHz signal on-the-fly back upto 192KHz & create signal B. Now, the playing field is level because the same machine downsampled & upsampled the signal & the same filters have screwed up the A & B signals. The signal X is the original 192KHz signal. If you were to use the original 192KHz which was created on some different machine against the 48KHz created on your CDP, you would have the effect of 2 different digital filters & you could not do a true A/B comparison. Does this make sense guys?

if you're not sold on hi-res.....fine. just don't tell me what i hear isn't for real and i'm "wrong".
Levy03

if you are sold on hi-rez, fine. I don't know what you are listening to - true hi-rez (which would mean the analog masters sampled at 96KHz or 192KHz & made available for purchase) OR bogus hi-rez (whcih would mean taking the 16-b CD data, resampling it at 96K or 192K & providing it for sale to the unsuspecting public).
There have been sooooooo many scams re. hi-rez (recently read something about HDTracks were the offenders. Here is the link:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Metallica-Black-Album-HDTracks-Download)
that it's really very difficult to tell what the manuf has provided for sale.
You are probably listening to some digital filter thinking it's hi-rez & you are in 7th Heaven.
Maybe we should let you be - ignorance would be a bliss for you.....

As for filters - look at typical response of 2and 8 pole 20kHz Bessel filter in dB:

2pole 8pole
20kHz -3 -3
22kHz -3.63 -3.67
40kHz -9.82 -13.68
80kHz -20.32 -51.81

Kijanki, you provided us w/ the freq resp of ANALOG Bessel filters. I agree with you & I did write this in my prev post - analog filters cannot creat a sharp cutoff like what the author has shown - large attenuation between 20K-24K.
But, how about digital FIR filters? Can they create such a sharp roll-off?
Yeah, sure they can! Did you bother to read any of the links I referenced in my post? The paper from Dan Lavry shows 1 example & then there is that AES paper by Julian Dunn that also shows 4 filters that have 100dB atten & only a modest # of taps. All FIRs have flat group delay in-band.

If you have not heard a properly setup DAC with hi-res files, you owe it to yourself to do so... before you spend any money on a CD player... you will be happy that you did. Not to mention the benefit seeing your entire music collection on an iPad and being able to make playlists, etc. Why would anyone want to search through a bunch of CDs, put it into a device that could only add noise and jitter and eventually will fail (drive, optics), and hear a few songs that you may like by one artist on that CD. Instead, if you like Chris Issak for example, have every song he every recorded in AT LEAST the same quality, and most times better quality sound than the std. CD, all at your finger tips. How can you beat that?

OK guys.... here is a link to this study, no wait.... here is a link to this paper, no, i mean, her a link to this test a dude did a while back that says you are wrong... etc. etc.....

SO WHAT!!!!!!!! How is all this arguing about studies and technical data and technical specs going to tell you how ANOTHER PERSON will interpret how a certain CD player playing a std. redbook CD sounds vs. a DAC playing a digital file !!!!!!!!!!!