In Reply to: I'm no engineer; all I know is... posted by triode on March 9, 2012 at 11:02:01:
No information is gained by upsampling or oversampling an existing recording. One is simply using a different process to play the same limited resolution original. As such, the result may sound better or worse. (If you are using an inexpensive DAC then it is more likely to sound better. If you are using an expensive DAC and high quality upsamplers there will likely be little difference.) This "fake hi-res" is not to be confused to listening to real hi-res where the material you purchase and play has never been forced through the "knot hole" of a lower sample rate.
If you find upsampled material sounds edgy you might try using a different upsampler, or different settings on your upsampler if these are available. Typically, best results will be obtained by using upsamplers with a filter setting that rolls off the high frequencies a bit, rather than make them edgy. With sample rate converters such as the iZotope 64 bit SRC one can control cut-off frequency, slope, and phase, thereby allowing for tradeoffs between high frequencies, smoothness, and imaging. In general, one can get good performance out of any two of these three qualities, but not all three simultaneously when working with 44 kHz material. As one increases the size of one's "bag" (sampling rate) one can put more "stuff" (natural sounding music) into it.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
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Follow Ups
- RE: I'm no engineer; all I know is... - Tony Lauck 13:02:49 03/09/12 (0)