AC POWER
Hardwired 10kVA balanced mains powering entire system
AMPS
Meridian 557 power Amp (Modded) / PS Audio BHK Preamp (Modded)
SPEAKERS
Wharfedale Evo 4.4
DAC
PS Audio Directstream (Modded)
TURNTABLE
Pro-Ject X8 balanced output via XLR / Ortofon Quintet Blue cartridge
PHONOSTAGE
Pro-Ject DS3 B balanced Input (TT and Phonostage powered by Pro-Ject Power box RS2 linear psu)
DIGITAL
OPPO 203 (Modded: Linear PSU, i2s output to Dac) - Roon Endpoint, HDMI input used for all things Streaming/ PS5 /AppleTV ... also good for movies apparently?
MUSIC PLAYBACK
Tweaked AP-Linux based Roon Server into Oppo 203 as Roon endpoint
Ipad Roon Remote.
Apple Music/ YouTube via AppleTV, fed to Dac via Oppo HDMI input/i2s output to Dac.
SPEAKER CABLES
Biwired: Duelund DCA10GA (Bass) Duelund DCA16GA (mid & treble) Duelund 12DCA used as jumpers (On "Blackcat Cable" Chris Sommivigo's advice - yup, even with biwire it sounds better - and it does)
INTERCONNECTS
All Balanced: Ghost+ recording studio XLR cables
Who says I'm not a Sith?
I don't get your thing about bit depth. All bit depth does is determine the maximum dynamic range possible. 16 bits gives more dynamic range than you need for 99.99% of recordings and even then it is probably higher than the amplifier is capable of anyway - what is the weakest link with regard to dynamic range in any system? It isn't going to be the digital source even if it is a supermarket brand DVD player.
All very well to talk about the effects of aliasing, bit depth, pre and post ringing, jitter etc, but can you hear them when music is playing? And the answer is no. If these things were audible vinyl would sound terrible since its sins are of far worse magnitude in these respects.
Current Lash Up:
TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.
Archimago did an interesting experiment to demonstrate that even with high jitter and drift values you can't hear the differences. He created versions of a track that had jitter and drift values far in excess of even poorly designed DACs.
This is his write up and the relevant tracks can be obtained here.
Anyway I certainly can't hear any differences - even after several plays. I was keen to hear differences so as to confirm my positive bias I have towards my set up. It is not to be.
Current: [P20] Roon/Tidal > Custom PC> Chevron Paradox NDF16 > Phast Pre > Neuro. 686 > Tannoy Berkley (RFC tweaks)
All depends if you suffer from Al Gore isms
Regards,
Grant .... ؠ ......Don't be such a big girl's blouse
I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply-doesn't-work.... ..... ...... ...... ................... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
FIIO K7 BT, M11 PLUS, BTR7, KA5 - OPPO BDP-103D - PANASONIC UB450 - PANASONIC 4K ULTRA HD TV - PIXEL 6 - AVANTREE LR BLUETOOTH - 2* X600 SOUNDCORE - HEADPHONES INCLUDE, FIIO, NURAPHONES', FOCAL, OPPO, BOSE, CAMBRIDGE, BOWER & WILKINS, DEVIALET, MARSHALL, SONY, MITCHELL & JOHNSTON - 2*ZBOOK'S- MERCURY BD ROM, ROON, QOBUZ, TIDAL, PLEX, CYBERLINK, JRIVER - MULTI HDD'S -
Oh my god! There's nothing wrong with the bidet is there?
“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy".
“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”
"You don't have free will. You have the appearance of free will.”
“There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!”
***SMILE, BE HAPPY***
Definitely bit depth matters. However if you upsampled a 16 bit track to 352Khz (or whatever frequency) whilst staying with 16 bit wordlength the resultant track will sound worse due to rounding. Any digital manipulation needs to be done at a high enough bit depth (typically DSP these days do things at 64 bit floating) and then dithered down to the end result (16, 24 etc). Your 24 bit 44.1khz track will sound better then the 16 bit upsampled track.
Or did I misunderstand your post?
Of course the upsampling engine you used may be at fault.
Last edited by Edward; 02-11-2019 at 13:34.
Current: [P20] Roon/Tidal > Custom PC> Chevron Paradox NDF16 > Phast Pre > Neuro. 686 > Tannoy Berkley (RFC tweaks)
been using dsd in main system as audirvana does it and pc over there has enough memory etc so there is no problems
Regards,
Grant .... ؠ ......Don't be such a big girl's blouse
I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply-doesn't-work.... ..... ...... ...... ................... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
FIIO K7 BT, M11 PLUS, BTR7, KA5 - OPPO BDP-103D - PANASONIC UB450 - PANASONIC 4K ULTRA HD TV - PIXEL 6 - AVANTREE LR BLUETOOTH - 2* X600 SOUNDCORE - HEADPHONES INCLUDE, FIIO, NURAPHONES', FOCAL, OPPO, BOSE, CAMBRIDGE, BOWER & WILKINS, DEVIALET, MARSHALL, SONY, MITCHELL & JOHNSTON - 2*ZBOOK'S- MERCURY BD ROM, ROON, QOBUZ, TIDAL, PLEX, CYBERLINK, JRIVER - MULTI HDD'S -
Oh my god! There's nothing wrong with the bidet is there?
“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy".
“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”
"You don't have free will. You have the appearance of free will.”
“There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!”
***SMILE, BE HAPPY***
Location: Moved to frozen north, beyond Inverness
Posts: 2,615
I'm Dave.
I think your comments are theoretically correct - but some people might find that practically they're not - for them at least. I can't actually comment sufficiently well on audio, but I have done work with video and image files. Much of the theory is the same, but sometimes it is definitely possible to get a much better visual effect with some digital processing, and perhaps also upsampling. Compared with the original images the modified ones must have been less good, because of the processing, but most people would prefer the edited ones.
There are limits to what can be achieved, however, sometimes the improvements are only slight if there's insufficient detail in the originals.
Dave
That's the key point. When the vinyl record was developed I am sure that few people could imagine how much information could be recorded in the grooves. At the time, the technology to retrieve the Nth degree of detail from a groove was not fully developed. Over the years, there has been a progressive improvement in technology and engineering so that albums recorded and pressed 50 years ago (or longer) can sound fantastic. Yes, there were very good reproduction systems around by the 60's, but they were the exception rather than the norm. I believe the same applies to digital. When the CD was launched I contend that the same was true: that there was an imbalance in the audio chain and that encoding analogue to digital was more successful than the reverse process. I could barely listen to cd when it was first launched. I was particularly sensitive to the high frequency playback and what I now perceive to be "time smearing". Again, there were a few decent cd players around, but most were way out of my budget. Over time, these problems seem to have been addressed and I am now happy to have all but switched over to digital. However, it has taken a long time to make good quality digital reproduction truly affordable and for me the biggest improvement has come with the better processing of digital to analogue through upsampling.
AC POWER
Hardwired 10kVA balanced mains powering entire system
AMPS
Meridian 557 power Amp (Modded) / PS Audio BHK Preamp (Modded)
SPEAKERS
Wharfedale Evo 4.4
DAC
PS Audio Directstream (Modded)
TURNTABLE
Pro-Ject X8 balanced output via XLR / Ortofon Quintet Blue cartridge
PHONOSTAGE
Pro-Ject DS3 B balanced Input (TT and Phonostage powered by Pro-Ject Power box RS2 linear psu)
DIGITAL
OPPO 203 (Modded: Linear PSU, i2s output to Dac) - Roon Endpoint, HDMI input used for all things Streaming/ PS5 /AppleTV ... also good for movies apparently?
MUSIC PLAYBACK
Tweaked AP-Linux based Roon Server into Oppo 203 as Roon endpoint
Ipad Roon Remote.
Apple Music/ YouTube via AppleTV, fed to Dac via Oppo HDMI input/i2s output to Dac.
SPEAKER CABLES
Biwired: Duelund DCA10GA (Bass) Duelund DCA16GA (mid & treble) Duelund 12DCA used as jumpers (On "Blackcat Cable" Chris Sommivigo's advice - yup, even with biwire it sounds better - and it does)
INTERCONNECTS
All Balanced: Ghost+ recording studio XLR cables
Current: [P20] Roon/Tidal > Custom PC> Chevron Paradox NDF16 > Phast Pre > Neuro. 686 > Tannoy Berkley (RFC tweaks)