Can any DAC make 16/44.1 sound as good as 24/192?

The only DAC I’d heard which made Redbook 16/44 CD’s sound really good was the current PS DirectStream DAC.

Shocking how marginally listenable CD’s now sounded terrific with the DirectStream DAC. It’s not even golden ear stuff, it’s pretty obvious.

Listening to identical recordings with one in 16/44 format and the other in 24/96 FLAC and yet again in DSD. All streaming off a hardrive to first an OPPO Sonica DAC then a DirectStream DAC for comparison.

The Sonica is a nice implementation of the ESS Sabre DAC chip and everything sounded good, with CD as OK, FLAC sounded excellent, and DSD was awesome.

The DirectStream DAC closed the differences DRAMATICALLY. Sonically the same sonic quality pecking order remained, but shocking now much more the Redbook 16/44 sounded like the FLAC file.

4 Likes

I just added you to the list my friend. We’ll keep you posted as we get closer to launching beta. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

2 Likes

I got to hear one of the early iterations of the DSD MKII recently and it was nothing short of stunning. Listening to 44.1/16 made me wonder why we even bother with 192/24… :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

4 Likes

Such a tease…

But then again, that’s why @Paul pays you the big bucks.

:wink:

2 Likes

This does not qualify as a scientific test, therefore only has anecdotal meaning. Things written in Stereophile on the topic fall into the same anecdotal category. And in that arena, all sorts of very deceptive mind based dynamics come into play. The human brain is an extraordinarily unreliable entity, and this subject contains enumerable variables not easily sorted. The mind suffers from being an equally confused seeker and judge, the very voice that reaches seemingly concrete conclusions is very unreliable. History has demonstrated this via myth for thousands of years. The human brain loves myth because it creates faux certainty.

To my knowledge, no one with either the know how or the means has bothered to conduct an actual scientific study comparing the different sample rates. And the very last folks on earth who want such a study conducted are the manufactures of high end audio gear. Voodoo, or at minimum belief and uncertainty, and the fuzzy allure of the grass being greener, pays the bills.

I’m just here for the good parking spot. It’s in the shade this time of year :sunglasses: :sunglasses:

4 Likes

That is pretty lush, bruh.

2 Likes

Over the years I have found this to be a fraught conversation - along with many others in this pursuit. Particularly those with a lotta variables. This is one of those.

For me it started with early pro digital devices (only 16 bit back then) that for the first time offered 48kHz as well as 44.1 sampling. The extended top end was easily audible. Higher res = better! Done deal! But then of course, you would want to downsample to 44.1 for output to CD - and downsampling SUCKED at that point. Not that most of us had any idea or noticed. It was what was the highest tech available. It was Perfect Sound In Every Way! For…like…Ever!:cowboy_hat_face:

Skipping pro gear moving up to 24/96, etc. - the next time it really got shoved into my consciousness from a personal listening perspective was getting into home theater and the WAR for market dominance (and it was) between SACD (and surround) and DVD-A (and surround). VERY much mattered what device you were playing one format or the other through.

Having the latest, bestest Oppo didn’t guarantee that you had the best of both worlds, despite it playing both. The Sonys produced better SACD sound, and the Oppos did better DVD-A sound (though of course the Sonys didn’t do both). Done “right” they were both really good.

AND it seemed to matter which format the material had been recorded in. Though frequently, as now - there was no apples-to-apples material to compare.

And both were still better than Redbook. But few were making any effort to make what we would now consider “really” good Redbook discs or Redbook playback machines, because that wasn’t what was happening at the time. You could still shove a cheap transport and DAC chip in a box to play CDs and make money.

Despite being an early high res fan (either DSD or PCM) I now think a good Redbook recording, played via the right gear, will not automatically be meaningfully “beaten” by a high res version. But again - still to this day - tough to make any sort of true apples-to-apples comparison for one reason or another.

So it has over time become a non-issue for me. Does it sound good? Bueno! It is in fact good! You’re not missing anything.

1 Like

My son is in the “do not care” category. Spotify or Pandora are both plenty good enough for him. I offered to give him some of my used PSA gear that I have for sale and he sad it wasn’t worth the effort for him.

@Elk summed it up perfectly.

The only way to objectively find out your personal ability to differentiate formats is blind level matched listening through a good resolving DAC like a DCS Rossini.

I am indifferent to lossless formats, I play what I have ripped, downloaded or can stream. I just don’t care. My DAC converts all incoming sources including DSD64 to 40/384 PCM.

“MAT DSD Core technology converts the DSD format into Expert internal native PCM 40 bits / 384 kHz format thanks to an optimized algorithm, limiting the amount of computational operations on the audio stream. Using only 15 bit perfect additions (no multiplication, no storage), the MAT algorithm performs a 128 taps, linear phase FIR (Finite Impulse Response) digital filter ensuring the conversion of the DSD format into internal native PCM format with truly outstanding performances.”

None of which I understand. Someone took 16/44 and upsampled it with a dCS to 24/192 PCM and then DSD64, fed it into this device and reported it sounded different.

People may well genuinely hear different things, but what is better, or why they sound different are to me open questions. I’m one of the multitude that uses a DAC that does things I don’t understand, I like the sound and beyond that I’m not bothered. My impression is that dCS sound better because of their signal processing and DSD up sampling, which they pioneered about a decade before anyone else did it.

Thank you kindly, my friend.

For me, the primary benefit of high res releases, DSD or otherwise, is often the audiophile companies involved with the release have sought to find the best master available. After all, they are audiophile companies. While not foolproof, this maxim often applies. Thus the reason I seek out such releases is less because of the file format or sample rate, and more because of the mastering attention, and subsequent audio quality.

3 Likes

Wandering around YouTube I stumbled across a video about SACD. In it the presenter refers to a year long double blind study in 2007 involving audio engineers, audiophiles, and students utilizing a variety of high quality and expensive systems. The result, FWIW, is that in 554 trials, there were 276 correct answers for detectability of a difference between 16/44 vs SACD/DVD-A… The results were the same as chance, 49.82%.

This is why the HiFi industry, including and certainly not limited to, PS Audio, rely on anecdotal conclusions rather than science when it comes to the world of high res audio. In fact, the industry intentional shuns actual studies into what sounds best. The audiophile world is one in which “lalalalala” is the best answer because it keeps the movie playing.

This jibes with my own very anecdotal conclusions that, by far, the most important factor is mastering. The format that sounds best is the one with the best mastering. It would be infinitely more helpful to have a metric printed on an album declaring its mastering quality than seemingly meaningless numbers about sample rate or tricky marketing speak about format.

1 Like

The skills of the recording engineer, mixing engineer, and mastering engineer are always the most important. Format is a distant second.

I place the role of the recording engineer as the most significant by far.

2 Likes

The performers aren’t #1 ?? Although some engineers do have the tendency to make a performer sound better than they actually do.

1 Like

Not when discussing the quality of sound of a recording.

2 Likes

@ANONYMOUS obviously if the musicianship and instruments suck, the recording will suck as well. The discussion was about sample rates and file formats. And how in that context mastering is most important :+1:

I disagree. The work of the recording engineer is most important.

The mastering engineer cannot take drek from a bad recording engineer and turn it into a great recording.

But superb work by a recording engineer can make a mastering engineer superfluous. The best mastering engineers know this and will do nothing, or next to nothing, when handed a superlative recording.

1 Like

But, isn’t the quality of the sound of a recording based both on the quality of the performance AND the quality of the engineering? It sure is in my book.

2 Likes

I think we’re talking about two different, but obviously related components of a recording.

1 Like