Unlike analog audio, which records a smooth and continuous waveform in real time, digital audio must capture audio samples in a series of discrete steps numerous times per second. The more often you can sample, the smoother and more faithful the recording will be to the original analog sound. (Remember, sounds in the real world that our ears hear are analog.) A standard music CD has a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, whereas high-res audio can go up to 96k or 192k. (Most tests have concluded that 192k is overkill without much practical benefit.) Aside from the occasional concert movie, almost all feature films and television shows are mixed at a rate of 48 kHz. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future due to a variety of logistical issues in the film production pipeline. For example, 96k files require twice as many mixing resources as 48k, which means that only half the number of channels on the console would be available. Not to mention that the average movie soundtrack is comprised of numerous audio elements recorded at a variety of quality levels. 48k is a common standard that works and doesnÂt seem ready to change.
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