Thought I would try a bit harder to identify the difference (if any audible in my system); all I knew previously was that I was keen to switch back from bypass to upsampling, but not so keen to go back to bypass - upsampling seemed easier on the ear and more natural.
I chose a couple of songs with a good mix of low-level detail and louder passages - Bonnie Rait's 'Thing Called Love' and 'Love Letter' from Nick of Time (FLAC), and switched back and forth multiple times listening to different aspects each time. Very subtle, but definite; on complex sections upsampling mode held the picture together better, whereas it could get a tiny bit more confused and difficut to pick out subtleties on bypass. Loud vocal was more likely to sound very slightly harsh on bypass, less so with upsampling, which generally made it easier to hear low-level background detail throughout. Most surprising was a more solid punch to both snare and bass, with more information about the sound of both instruments - I guess this comes again from better resolution of small details, especially on loud sections. All this is in broad agreemenet with most theories about why upsampling can sound better - it seems to be less distortion of the baseband due to differential non-linearities in the DAC process, due to signal-dependent ultrasonic dither resulting from the very gentle roll-off filter allowing signal up to the Nyquist point of the 192KHz signal to enter the DAC. Some would claim that the necessity of re-clocking close to the DAC due to 192KHz being asynchronous with the input clock also helps by reducing jitter. Anyway it sounds easier on the ear AND more revealing - so it works for me; these are tiny differences that seem to make a noticeable difference on enjoyment of the music. Anybody else got experiences on this to share? Paul -- BigEars ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BigEars's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6154 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32055 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
