Upsampling and Stereophile


Last summer there were several threads here on Audiogon about digital upsampling and over sampling (a couple long and heated), but the opinion(s) of the audio press were conspicuously absent. In the Dec. 2000 issue of Stereophile, page 3, John Atkinson, has an editorial explaining their position on this in his "As We See It" column, page 3. I encourage everyone interested in the subject to look up the article. I have excerpted the following quotes that I think sums up Stereophile's opinion, and that may pique your interst: (1) "....the audio industry has settled on an 8X-oversampling ratio, the 44.1 kHZ CD data being converted to a 352.8 kHZ datastream before D/A conversion." (2) "no matter how good these upsampling products can sound-- and the dCS, Bel Canto, and MSB products indeed sound excellent-- there is no conceptual difference between them and traditional CD playback systems. I am now convinced that the sonic differences we have heard and reported on are merely due to the different choices in digital filters made by the designers of these products." (3) "In the meantime don't buy a digital product because it has "24/96" emblazoned on its front panel. Buy it because it makes your CDs sound great". Cheers. Craig.
garfish
Garfish: Check Stereophile Vol.22 No. 2 page 17 There's a list of DVD players on the 24/96 subject
Garfish: Also check http://www.msbtech.com/faq.html you'll see that Pioneer 606 and 414 do pass 24/96 signals through their coaxial digital outs. Regards
Avguygeorge: I just got in after a long weekend and found this thread. From my perspective, it's not only the cheaper stuff that improves; the dCs Purcell upsampler improves the sound even of a Forsell and Audio Logic digital front end; that's why I bought the thing. Smoother, more harmonically fleshed out, deeper bass, better dynamics. I never thought it was adding information (can't match a 24/96 or SACD disc, nor analog), and I always suspected they were doing some sort of filtering tricks, but it sounds substantially better to my aging ears. Closer to analog; I guess that's my goal with digital playback.
Garfish: Add the Marantz DV18 to the list of DVD players that output a 24/96 digital signal--I use that one for that purpose. I think their less expensive ones in that line also can output a 24/96 digital signal too, but I'm not sure. You have to use a video monitor to program the digital out that way.