Can upsamplers alter a CD's sonic performance?

Sal- Of course, that's what the manufacturer's claim. Regrettably, there are plenty of products that don't live up to their hype. Let your ears be the final judge of a products performance, not a spec sheet playing "numbers" games. Just my .02

Sal, I am only familiar with the Purcel and what it did, regarding soundstage, dissolving powers, presentation of voices and solo instruments and smoothing out that otherwise sometimes a bit brash and forward highend, I found quite amazing. I could not stand listening to redbook CDs without it anymore. Mind you, I'm basically still a vinyl man.
Happy listening!

I strongly believe that with the right DAC, upsampling improves the sound of a regular CD. I own both the DCS 972 upsampler with the Elgar DAC and the MSB Platinum upsampling DAC. I've also tried the Perpetual technologies in front of a Theta Pro Gen Va upgraded to accept a 96kz signal. All of these DACs also oversample in addition. The dCS web site has some very usefull and not particular self serving technical white papers on this subject.
To keep it simple; the reason that upsampling improves the sound is that it allows the DAC to convert the digital info to analog with fewer added artifacts that are a result of the DAC's internal conversion algorithims and filters. These added analog artifacts (which are NOT part of the original CD's encoded data) make the analog signal sound harsh and congested. That said, the best perfomance should be from a DAC that is very well designed in the first place. A fair number aren't, power supplies and the quality of the analog stages being a typical weakness. In dealer's systems, I've also listened to most, but not all of the contenders in the high end upsampling DAC market niche. There are subtle differences between the high end DACs that can be brought out by different recordings. Along with the standard "You need to let your ears be the judge" you also should listen to a representative sample of your favorite music. Because of this, it is hard to say which of these combos is the absolute best.

Well said Plsl, I agree especially with the second 1/2 of your post. Cheers. Craig

Be sure to check out this link from Musical Fidelity on their new upsampling CD player. I read about it today in the Gramophone magazine BEFORE I made my above post. http://www.musical-fidelity.co.uk/

Depends on total design of CDP/DAC, just because a unit has upsampling DAC doesn't mean it will sound better then one that doesn't, but it has the potential to if other design issues are properly addressed.

The reason the original signal is upsampled, by adding dither, is noise atrifacts can be removed easier without harming original signal. The type of DA filtering used is crucial to perserving natural sounding high frequencies,
and overall natural detail and focus.

There are other issues, jitter control/clock design, use of audiophile grade capacitors/resistors, control of EMI/RFI and many other design details are needed to make a great sounding digital front end.

Also because of this many cheaper external DACS sound better than very expensive CDPs with built in DAC. The last 3 yrs has produced more improvement in digital sound than the previous 20, upsampling is one piece of this puzzle.

Everyone who comes to this post needs to read Megasam's response. As he stated; with upsampling, noise artifacts can be removed easier without harming the signal.

This is very simple and straight forward explanation to why upsampling can potentially improve a digital player or dac.

I feel that many of the publications and other so called "experts" are confusing audiophiles about what upsampling is, and why it works. In my opinion, Megasams' answer sums up what upsampling does in one simple sentence.

Last August I posteed a thread asking if a CD droped into a transport tray hooked to an upsampling DAC would saidCD sound significantly better. Well, 2 weeks ago I bought an Electrocompaniet ECD1 192 upsampling DAC and hooked it to my MAC 205 player. It was a demo so the unit was burned in. WOW! What an unbelievable improvement in the sound of my CDs. I just can't say enough to express the changes this upsampler made!

i read in a canadian mag that they upsample to dsd before playing. well, my ns500v sounds better as a cdp than my original setup (philips cdr/alchemy ditb) which sounded fairly good to begin with. my 20 yr old daughter noticed this on her CDs also and reinforced this when i mentioned it to her. i believe it was an incubus cd that she said she thought someone was in the next room where the player was. at any rate, i like the sound of my ns500v especially at the price of $161 delivered.
.......regards.....tr

Hello Pls1, can you please expand on this. I can't quite follow.

"The reason that upsampling improves the sound is that it allows the DAC to convert the digital info to analog with fewer added artifacts that are a result of the DAC's internal conversion algorithms and filters"

- How is it converting the digital to analog with fewer added artifacts?
- Where is the analog signal goes from there?

"These added analog artifacts (which are NOT part of the original CD's encoded data) make the analog signal sound harsh and congested. "

- Where is the upsampling come-in? Will it clean out the artifacts while the signal still in digital or analog?

Thanks, William

ISTT