Upsampling to 24/96 with Audiofile Engineering's Sample Manager...opinions/advice please.

[RobGoodison]

Hi All,

 

This will teach me to stop tweaking...

 

I'm running a headless Mac mini (latest version), an Apogee Duet DAC/Headphone amplifier, and a pair of Denon AH-D7000 headphones...a custom mains cable for the mini, and a Oyaide Neo-W d+1394 cable connecting the Duet to the mini. All files are either 16 or 24 bit, at 44.1K. I'm using Amarra Junior for playback.

 

So far, so good - very happy with the sound, until...

 

I used Audiofile Engineering's Sample Manager to upsample some 16/44 files to 24/96, (Convert Bit Range to 24 (no dithering); Convert Sample Rate (using the iZotope Resampler (settings dragged to 'High'))).

 

I removed Amarra Junior from the playback chain, set Audio Midi to Duet 24/96, and listened to the upsampled files...

 

What an amazing difference - the music seems a lot more 'open' with more separation, and a more lively presentation.

 

Has anyone else tried Audiofile Engineering's Sample Manager or Wave Editor to upsample 16/44 files and noticed a similar improvement? If so, can anyone suggest why? I had tried Pure Music's upsample capability and didn't notice such a dramatic improvement...

 

Your thoughts would be welcome (and any advice on how best to configure Sample Manager). I'm seriously considering investing in the $79 fee to purchase Sample Manager and another £100 or so on a 2TB external drive for the music files now.

 

Best regards,

 

Rob.

 

 

 

[jtwrace]

I've always wanted to try this. A tutorial would be great.

 

[dsnyder]

Hello,

 

I experimented with this using Cirlinca's HD-Audio Solo Ultra to create upsampled (to 24-bit, 88.2kHz) DVD-Audio versions of some of my CDs to play on my old Denon DVD-2930CI. On the Denon, the upsampled discs had smoother, more analog sounding treble. The stereo image was not quite as wide, but the location of instruments in the soundstage had greater focus.

 

There is obviously no more information in the files after upsampling, but my theory is that artifacts are added by the steep filters in the DAC. Upsampling shifts some of these artifacts up to frequencies that we can't hear as easily. There's some information about this on Cirlinca's site under their "How to" section.

 

-- David

 

 

 

[elcorso]

Very interesting David!

 

Right now I can't do it with Cirlinca , since I'm on Mac and don't want to install "Virtual Pc" nor similars to emulate Windows, I'm afraid of Windows virus that can infect my Hard Disk.

 

But I can try this with Korg/AudioGate (in Mac version, since it's not Windows only), that is my default computer music player right now, and has the capacity to convert all types of music files (even DSD) with a user friendly interphase. With the same app you can write to CD' and DVD's. The only fault is you need a Twitter account, and every time you do a conversion you must "report" this to Twitter (but this is the only "price" you pay, and the app switch you to Twitter automatically).

 

Last night I played a 44.1/16 file in 96/24 resolution (by mistake since you have to choose in this app the resolution output manually), and the result was a disaster: A lot of harsh, hardness, and distorted highs...

 

Thanks for share your research,

 

Roch

 

[dsnyder]

Hello,

 

If your computer is running Linux or Mac OS X, you can probably use the freeware SoX command-line tool to do your upsampling. Here's an example that works for me with SoX version 14 (all one line, even though the browser may break the line):

 

$ for i in *.flac do printf "sox "%s" -b 24 "%s" rate -v -M 176.4kn" "$i" "${i%.flac} - [email protected]" done | sh -x

 

With an ideal playback system, we should not hear much difference between the standard and upsampled files. On some real-world playback systems, this sounds a bit better, and on others, it sounds worse. It's fun to play with though if you have the time and inclination.

 

-- David

 

 

[firedog]

Rob-

 

Many users have had similar experiences - not everyone. Like everything in audio, it can be system dependent.

 

iZotope is widely considered to be among the one or two best upsamplers around. Believe it or not, not all upsamplers are created equal. Some give results that sound better than others.

 

There are two reasons I can think of for your results:

 

1. As noted, digital artifacts/filtering at the higher upsampled rates. Upsampling followed by the filtering at your DAC my push some unwanted sounds out of the range of hearing, so the result sounds "better" b/c some of the noise in the 44.1 files has been made inaudible/filtered out.

 

2. IMO, not all DACs operate equally well at all frequencies, even if they claim to be suited for all of 44k, 48k, 88k, 96K, 176k, and 192k. I think the tendency not to work quite as well tends to happen more at the higher frequencies, b/c in practice no one really played files like these until the past 2-3 years, and I assume manufacturers didn't stress optimizing their DACs for these frequencies until recently. My assumptions here could be totally wrong, but in any case I still think my observation that some DACs reproduce optimally at some frequencies and not at others holds. So maybe yours actually does a better job at 96k than at 44.1.

 

Others will tell you that you're nuts and the upsampled files CAN'T sound better. If they sound better to you - great! Enjoy.

 

[RobGoodison]

David: thanks for your comments and the link you provided - interesting reading.

 

Firedog: I was thinking that the Duet might be better suited to 96k playback, rather than 44k playback. When upsampled via Pure Music...I could tell a difference, but wasn't convinced it was a change for the better. However, converting the actual files, rather than rely on realtime conversion does make a difference - at least in my system and with my ears.