Well said Avguy, and Hi Charlie; My purpose(s) in posting this info. from Stereophile is because , as you say, this is complicated technology to us average bears. And for a year or more, Stereophile has been reviewing and promoting upsampling devices as being some kind of fantastic new technology. I think JA's editorial sets the record straight regarding Stereophile's position on up & oversampling technology, ie they are essentially the same thing. I do not mean to imply that the Stereophile guys are incompetent, in fact I respect JA and the rest of the Stereophile reviewers. I've learned much from the magazine, even though I certainly don't always agree with them. Charlie, in another thread you mentioned listening to "Tres Hombres" on 8 trk tapes, quad or something-- were you referring to the "Tres Hombres" that ZZ Top has done? That's grat music BTW. Happy Turkey Day. Craig.
Upsampling and Stereophile
Last summer there were several threads here on Audiogon about digital upsampling and over sampling (a couple long and heated), but the opinion(s) of the audio press were conspicuously absent. In the Dec. 2000 issue of Stereophile, page 3, John Atkinson, has an editorial explaining their position on this in his "As We See It" column, page 3. I encourage everyone interested in the subject to look up the article. I have excerpted the following quotes that I think sums up Stereophile's opinion, and that may pique your interst: (1) "....the audio industry has settled on an 8X-oversampling ratio, the 44.1 kHZ CD data being converted to a 352.8 kHZ datastream before D/A conversion." (2) "no matter how good these upsampling products can sound-- and the dCS, Bel Canto, and MSB products indeed sound excellent-- there is no conceptual difference between them and traditional CD playback systems. I am now convinced that the sonic differences we have heard and reported on are merely due to the different choices in digital filters made by the designers of these products." (3) "In the meantime don't buy a digital product because it has "24/96" emblazoned on its front panel. Buy it because it makes your CDs sound great". Cheers. Craig.
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- 32 posts total
- 32 posts total