Been a while since I've bought a CD, now I feel like I want to buy them and rip them in a lossless format

[mwheelerk]

For Cirlinca to call what their product does "remastering" is highly misleading marketing speak. The original master is not "improved' in any way. Instead the same master is converted to a higher resolution format via upsampling.

 

It is a mistaken impression that the point of the upsampling is to improve the source file. Done properly, it should not alter the sound of the source file. Rather, the point is to provide the DAC with a file in a format that allows it to perform at it's best.

 

It is true that DACs have an optimal sampling rate (which varies depending on the DAC) and it's generally higher than 16/44. That is why nearly all DAC's internally upsample the datastreams they are fed and a NOS (non oversampling) DAC is a rarity. A visual analogy would be a video monitor. My television is 1080p. It converts any signal it receives to 1080p internally - if it's not 1080p already. I'm surprised that there's still such a bias against upsampling. Most of the people who are opposed to it have DACs that upsample everything they listen to.

 

That said, I prefer to store all of my files in their original state. I set JRiver to upsample my music to DSD 128 in real-time as I play it.

I totally agree and most specifically with your first two paragraphs.