Upsampling - but seriously folks


Any fans of upsampling out there? Anyone have experience with upsampling in which it actually makes your source sound better?

Personally I don't see how it can possible make any difference, but I'd like to hear from those of you who have had a positive experience.
128x128jimspov

Showing 3 responses by bombaywalla

Any fans of upsampling out there? Anyone have experience with upsampling in which it actually makes your source sound better?
yeah, I have one CDP (a Wadia) that does upsampling well & I seem to like the sonics from it. It upsamples to 24/96 only. Like Erik mentioned Wadia has spent  a lot of time coming up with some fancy algorithms that sound good. there are 3 choices (called A, B, C) that i can choose from. I believe choice A is their 'digimaster" algo & choices B & C put the listener at different locations in a hall. This unit always upsamples with no option to turn it off. 

Personally I don't see how it can possible make any difference, b
you couldn't be more wrong!! ;-)
Upsampling makes a big difference, often for the worse but there are several cases where the resulting sonics are very good. It all depends on the algorithm. Much work has been done in this arena by (Boothroyd-Stuart) Meridian, Wadia & EMM Labs. Of course there're many others now. 
I've seen a lot of people posting on A'gon that they prefer their DAC's sonics with the upsampling turned off & I've also seen a lot of other posts where people like the effect of upsampling.
You are going to get a whole range of replies here. Better to search the archives here - there's a LOT written on this subject.....

  
phil9624,
maybe one day your moniker will be phil9632 when you switch over to 32-b upsampling? Just kidding.... ;-)
i don’t think anyone's going to laugh at you for
* using a stop-light pen
* or for thinking that cables make a big difference

many of us here have had similar experiences with both above items. Mostly, if it works for you, continue to use it. State your opinion & don’t try to convert anyone else. I’ve seen "fights" break out when some people try to convert others into their line of thinking or try to force a particular tweak down others' throats.
In the one particular case in my personal experience, the Wadia 861SE, i also very much like their 24/96 upsampling implementation. I cannot say that for every 24/96 or 24/192 implementation I’ve heard.
no problem phil9624. :-)

but actually downsampled some 192/24 FLAC Neil Young albums from PONO to 96/24 WAV and think it sounds better, also smaller file. Go figure! Best, Phil
it's not entirely surprising. As you know, the fold-over frequency for 192K is 96K & your digital stream is incoming at 192K. The circuits involved in handling this digital stream & the corresponding analog circuits need to have 2X the bandwidth (compared to a 24/96 data stream). So, the real question is: in your electronics, were the circuits designed for higher bandwidth? If not, it is quite possible that the circuits are distorting & even tho' the 24/192 might be cleaner/better sonically, the circuits are unable to render this correctly.
Dan Lavry (manuf of Lavry DACs. Lavry DACs are well regarded in the audiophile world) wrote a pretty nice white paper on this:

http://www.lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-white-paper-the_optimal_sample_rate_for_quality_audio.pdf

and here is another white paper on Sampling Theory (which i think you know well w/ your Physics degree) which touches upon the pros & cons of 192KHz upsampling:

http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf