basic upsampling clarification

[Guf Gufler]

I spent lots of time reading up on this and wondering if i have it right.

 

Upsampling is a choice...That some people chose to do and others do not.

 

I use Audirvana. If I do experiment with upsampling I chose an option from the drop down menu under forced upsampling. And with this option it preloads the track in the computers ram? I am upsampling "on the fly"?

 

Another option is to use software to upsample tracks, albums or whole libraries before loading them into the player and then play the the tracks with the "none" box checked?

 

Do I need to adjust filters for either of the above options?

 

Also some DACs internally upsample?

 

And there is an option to upsample everything to DSD? On the fly or pre upsample?

 

Some claimed benefits of listening to an upsampled track is more airy, alive, spacious, clarity, depth, separation and on the flip side some negative claims are its not how it's intended and artificial, or hifi sounding instead of musical?

 

thanks in advance!

[k6davis]

I'm a Windows guy, so I can't answer anything pertaining to Audirvana, but I'll throw my .02 in.

 

With JRiver (Windows/Mac), yes, it is a choice. You can definitely convert your music prior to listening to it, or store it converted on your drives. Instead, I convert everything to DSD in real-time, on the fly. I use JRiver's (current) maximum upsampling rate of DSD128 - double the DSD64 rate of used in the SACD format. I'm hearing that there are further advantages to upsampling even higher with HQPlayer - to DSD256, or quad-DSD. I'm going to give that a try next.

 

JRiver doesn't offer filter options, but other players do, like HQPlayer.

 

Nearly all modern DACs do internally upsample the data they receive. A simple argument for upsampling in the computer instead is that it's got far more processing power for the computationally intensive job and of course, the software used for the process is upgradable and configurable.

 

Whether or not DSD upsampling results in better SQ has a lot do with your DAC. If your DAC excels at (the proportely simpler/superior process of) DSD decoding, then feeding it a quality DSD signal will likely result in a better result. If, on the other hand, your DAC's designer focused on PCM with DSD as an afterthought, then your results will likely be the opposite.

 

There are several people here who have found that DSD upsampling (in a system that does DSD well) offers a level of sound that is superior to what they've heard from PCM. I agree with that.