Upsampling DACS: Take the Pepsi Challenge

All I did was try to stick to the thread topic, and yet it seems someone using a woman's name doesn't like that most audiophiles simply like "gadgets" and how things work, besides their love for music. I won't apologize for this, and I am even proud of it! It's in the nature of most men to be curious about the workings of the physical world (and it doesn't seem to be that way for most women). It helps them appreciate it better...whereas those who aren't curious about these "tidbits" very often seem to have little or no appreciation for them. (I.e., on interstate highways, women driving their SUV's...aren't thinking about how heavy an 18 wheeler is, so they very often drive in their large blindspots, only thinking about staying around the speed limit...rather than foreseeing the possibility that the trucker might suddenly need to change lanes. Don't tell me any of you haven't seen this a billion times, as well!) It's all a question of personal prioroties and observatonal logic/natural curiousity). And, I feel that my views on audio in general are representative of perhaps 80% of "audiophiles". Also, we don't listen to music because we don't love it...

WOW! Lets get back to the topic(s). I too am very curious about the latest developments in DAC technologies. Carl, maybe it would help us layman if you could explain upsampling using an analogy (like when math teachers use a pie to help students visualize the concept of division)... it might seem silly but it would help get us out of the abstract world and into the physical world where things are easier to understand. You would be doing us all a great service if you could find a way to clarify this once and for all. Anyway, I do have a friend coming over this weekend with the Bel Canto DAC1, so I might have some more to say about that product early next week.

I emailed MSB yesterday regarding the Link DAC III's ability to INTERPOLATE AND UPSAMPLE. The response was as follows:

Thomas, We do have this available, we call it our upsampling upgrade. It does smart interpolation and upsamples the signal to 24/96kHz as well as 24/132kHz.

This upgrade is $199.00 and can be installed by the customer at any time.

Thank you for your interest, Scott Rust MSB TECHNOLOGY This information lead me to order a Link DAC III with the upsampling and interpolation chip. When I asked the Scott why does MSB not state anything about Interpolation on their website, he said "Nobody Knows what Interpolation is". Anyway. I have Pioneer DV-414 as the transport and the Link DAC III will complement it. I just thought I would interject my ignorance or 2 cents which ever is worth more!

I thought I'd done the laymen thing already, and as you'll probably see, I may still fail at that yet...........As said above by MSB (posted by perhaps an F-14 pilot?), interpolation occurs when voltage amplitude values are APPROXIMATED during this up-conversion from CD resolution data, to much HIGHER resolution data. It's sort of like a line doubler for video projectors...sort of, but not exactly..................I think of it in this simple way: the conversion of the audio data, in the digital domain, to a higher bit and sampling rate (upsampling), allow the high performance DAC to do its conversion on this LARGE amount of data, thus making full use of the DAC's superior resolution. IT'S NOT A MATTER OF CREATING NEW DETAILS IN THE RECORDING that were never there to begin with, it's a matter of getting the most out of what was always there...just like everything else in this hobby.......................It's also not merely "digital" we're talking about, but rather how the digital data gets turned into the analog voltages/waveforms...before it goes to your amp, or preamp. THAT'S ALWAYS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN DIGITAL AUDIO. Otherwise, you're making assumptions like my smug, MIT graduated, aeronautical engineer uncle. He's said the cliche right to my face, "but digital is digital; how could one CD player possibly sound different from another one?" You know, the old/stupid "bits is bits" argument, only he didn't even bother to think of it on that level............No DAC is perfect, but it is the critical "roadblock-weaklink" in the digital playback chain. Therefore, if you can make use of a "superDAC" on "mere" CD audio, it's much better than using DACs that operate only on the level of "CD quality" data................Anyway, audio is always about maximizing your UPSTREAM performance, in order to make full use of what you have DOWNSTREAM. UPSAMPLING "guesses" at many extra millions of possible "loudness" levels (and frequency "pulses" in time) in the digital data, BEFORE IT EVER GETS TO THE DAC (that needs all the "help" it can get)..............As perhaps most who'll read this know, SACD uses a different digital process, that samples at nearly 3 million times a second, and only uses one "loudness" bit, to tell if the waveform is rising or falling. It depends on the sheer density of those 2.8 million pulses every second, to describe how quiet or how loud the music is...............It's all much more complicated than this, but oh well, I'm not the real expert here...either from a designer's viewpoint, or from a journalist's viewpoint.

Carl, that was very helpful.Thank you for taking the time to offer such a clear summary. I'll get back to you all after I hear the Bel Canto DAC1 next week.