Streaming resolution


What’s your favorite streaming resolution?  I find when streaming hi-rez files the best resolution for me is 24/44.1 or 48.  Anything higher like 96 or 192 sounds to sanitary.  It’s almost lifeless.  It doesn’t reveal more for me it’s sounds flat and to precise.  At 48kHz - that is the sweet spot for me.  The music is lively and revealing and this is across genres. Do you have a preference? What are your experiences ?

polkalover

@tpt 

Any higher sample rates require harsher filters...

@jjss49 

not necessarily... just better filters that more suited to the chosen sample rate... 

My understanding is that as the sampling rate goes up, the less steep (less harsh) the filtering needs to be, to avoid aliasing.

@seymour-krelborn 

My understanding is that as the sampling rate goes up, the less steep (less harsh) the filtering needs to be, to avoid aliasing.

yes that is understanding that leads to the whole the idea of oversampling the digital signal prior to conversion

Hardly anybody has mentioned Direct Stream Digital (DSD) which as a minimum samples 64 times more frequently than CD, at about 2.8-MHz.  It requires the gentlest of low pass filters to get rid of MHz noise.

My Reavon universal disk player (closely related to the Oppos but with different dacs) converted DSD to CD quality when using its internal dacs.  The sound quality was so bad, I thought there was a fault but it was a poor design using Burr-Brown dacs that could not natively process DSD.

@mahler123 

Do you have any experience with Magnetar players?

No, but they are very similar to the Reavon - same system-on-a-chip, etc.

I always recommend finding out what dacs are used, and looking up the spec sheets for each type of dac.  If DSD is not explicitly mentioned, steer clear.

My Reavon works brilliantly as a transport, where DSD is output over HDMI to my Marantz AV8800 pre-processor.  This has eight 2-channel dacs from AKM which do natively process DSD.