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Converting Flac to Wav & Upconversion

I've seen Steve N. Recommend converting Flac to Wav a few times in the threads. Last night I downloaded DBPoweramp to give it a try. It worked great. Just took 16/44 Flac & converted to 16/44 wav. Then I noticed it offered upconversion capability... It was late, I should have been in bed an hour before, but I sat there and converted another flac file, setting it to upconvert to 24/192... Let it do its thing, hit play, heard music and when I looked up at my DAC, it said 24/192. It worked!. It was late, I had the volume on very very low, everyone was asleep. Sure, I'll listen and report, but 'm wondering if anyone else has tried this and found any sound quality difference between Flac Or Wav @ 16/44 vs upconverting the recording? I and I'm sure others would love to hear your experience, thanks in advance, Tim
timlub
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Dob - It helps to understand why upsampling makes things sound smoother and silkier. Its not due to the upsampling itself, it because a different digital filtering is being auto-selected in your DAC. This higher frequency roll-off filter has less impact on the SQ.

If you can manually select the digital filter, then the advantage of upsampling the file goes away. You can select a high-frequency filter for all files for instance. That is what I do. This is even better than upsampling because you have the best of both worlds: the data is not modified and the digital filter is not impacting SQ.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
dob
577 posts
 
Hello Steve,

"Dob - It helps to understand why upsampling makes things sound smoother and silkier. "

I do not beleieve its always the case and depends larfely on the given DAC (with its filters and other parameters)

I believe later on you also said that if X then Y and else its Z etc....

I think audiophile must trust their ears first of all. If I like the taste of the given soup I don;t have to learn all exact ingridiens and methods of cooking involved in its preparation - leaving it to the brilliant chefs as you are.

Always ewmjoy reading your comments. Thanks a lot

Thanks
sgr's avatar
sgr
689 posts
 
Steve,
Any ideas about transcoding on the fly from FLAC to WAV?
Can this sound as natural as AIFF or WAV?
Has transcoding evolved to close the distance?

On reading your posts above, I think you were saying it is better to let the DAC do the up sampling rather then upconverting via IZotope?
Is there a way for Izotope to convert on the fly like transcoding?

Have you heard a difference converting a 44.1 file to 88.2 or 176.4 vs 96 or 192? Or does it make any difference?

Does AIFF keep all the artwork sorted as well as FLAC? Does AIFF sound the same as WAV?

Thanks in advance!
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Dob - higher sample-rate files can be better for high-frequency transients, but upsampling 44.1 has its own added distortions I have found. If a DAC has a high-order digital filter, then leaving a 44.1 file at 44.1 is usually the best course. This result depends on your DAC of course. I have one of the few DACs that sounds great with 44.1. At shows, the attendees believe that I'm playing hi-res when its only 44.1 rips.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
dob
577 posts
 
Thank you Steve.
I have only limited experience with upsampling and I am thankful to you for your much more generilized input
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