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24/96 DAC + DVD Player - Help

I recently picked up a Musical Fidelity X-24K 24/96 dac, and have it hooked up to the coax output of my cheap Sony DVD player. I have yet to see the DAC indicate a sampling rate above 48k. Is this normal? Is it a function of the recording, rather than the DVD player? When I turn off Dolby Digital at the digital output, it defaults to D-PCM. Is that the issue?

Thanks,

Neil
lneilb
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
Just because it is a 24/96 or 24/192 DAC means little by itself, regarding at what sampling rate it will play a CD. Without some kind up upsampling devise, a Redbook CD will play at 44.1 simply because it was made to play at that sampling rate.
reubent
7,080 posts
 
As usual, Sugarbrie is correct! Your transport/player needs to have an "upsampler" to output anything above 44.1K when playing a standard (redbook) CD.

Interestingly, my Cary CD-308 is an "upsampling" player and outputs a 24/96 signal at the digital out when set to the upsampling mode. I was surprised that the upsampling was done at the "transport" level and not in the DAC(analog) section.

BTW, my Birdland Odeon Lite DAC sounds much better (to my ear) when feed a 24/96K signal.

Enjoy,

TIC
lneilb's avatar
lneilb OP
108 posts
 
Thanks for the info everybody! I did not expect anything above 44k from CDs, but was surprised to only see 48k on recent DVDs, like Live in Paris from Diana Krall, and All This Time (Sting). It is correct that I was talking about the setup menu when turning off DD and defaulting to D-PCM. But my DVDs don't have any menus that allow for sampling rate selection. Looks like I have to get a different DVD player to make the most of this DAC. I'm not concerned about upsampling my CDs, because this DAC is warm and detailed, perfect for most CDs. I do need to snag a Monarchy DIP 24/96 to see what this thing can really do.
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