digital confusion


What's the benefit of having a 24 bit DAC when most CDs are 16 bit? What's an upsampler? How does it improve sound? Thanks
mattman

Showing 1 response by redkiwi

Thanks for putting it so well Sugarbrie. There are so many posts on this (and other) sites that talk about whether silver is better than copper, or if SS is better than tubes, or planars better than stats. The point is you cannot possibly put a system together that will work by using such simple rules. In fact you are almost guaranteed to fail this way. For example, if I believed that all 24 bit DACs were better than all 20 bit DACs I would just find the cheapest 24 bit DAC I could find and imagine that I had just saved myself a fortune by not buying those over-priced 20 bit DACs. If enough people were to think this way then the manufacturers will drive chip makers to come up with 30 bit DACs at the lowest possible cost, and regardless of sonics, so that we can be sucked into upgrading again. Isn't this what happened with power ratings, and the marketers of japanese electronics - you know what I mean, the 500W one cubic foot boombox. Essentially Sugarbrie is right Mattman - neither 24bit DACs nor upsamplers are silver bullets, but you can see explanations of them by looking at various other threads on this site.