Is it really useless Upscaling 16/44.1 music to 24


Is it really useless Upscaling 16/44.1 music to 24/176.4 or 24/192
In the past I asked this question and from the answers I learned that converting any music from 16/44.1 to higher resolution is just adding bunch of zeros in front. But now I started seeing so many DAC’s up-sampling the music to 24/192 or 24/384, which bring up the question again “Is it really add zero in front of 16/44 or did they figure out how to create a broader spectrum in frequency from 44 khz to 384 khz and how many listeners heard the difference in quality of sound by up converting it? “We are not discussing the HD-Track’s music.”
I read the reviews and saw the picture open DACs. I don’t see much in them other than a high rez sound card. Please correct me if I am wrong.
And finally, In JRiver/Foobar we have an option to up sample the music. Questions are
1) Does up converting makes a difference?
2) What is the difference between $500 or $5000 DAC re-sampling the music verses Foobar or JRiver re-sampling?
3) Can JRiver/Foobar do the same job in re-sampling the music as a DAC does?
trcns

Showing 2 responses by kijanki

Lewinskih01, There is no such thing as "Linear Power Supply". All power supplies are switchers and so called linear one is pretty bad one switching at 120Hz - frequency very difficult to filter out. Switching happens at the peak of the voltage while current is taken from the mains in short spikes of very high amplitude (polluting). For these reasons Rowland amplifiers use high frequency (1MHz) SMPS switching at zero voltage/ zero current even in his class AB amps. SMPS get their bad name from crude computers applications.
Steakster, Linear power supplies pollute more then well executed switching power supplies, that got bad reputation from crude computer applications. Well executed SMPS is extremely quiet and that's why Jeff Rowland uses them now in all amplifiers (also class AB), not to mention preamps (like Capri) where, because of low power, efficiency is not a factor. I'm not sure where "linear" came from, but probably refers to linear output vs. input voltage change - meaning unregulated. You can add linear regulator, but only for small loads like CD, preamp, etc - not for the power amp. They require huge capacitors to keep voltage ripple down. Transformers are huge as well. The reason you had better results with linear supply was the fact that your computer switcher wasn't designed for audio application.