In article , Vir
Campestris wrote:
On 12/07/2015 12:23, Jim Lesurf wrote:
No point playing a 96k/24bit file if what's squirted across USB to a
good DAC is being changed to 48k/16 without you being told.

I found a few years ago that Windows was resampling everything on my
machine to 48kHz. That was audible and I'm not a hifi buff... I guess
it wasn't doing it that well, though 48000-44100 must be a bit painful.
But I'm not convinced why you need to playback at 96kHz. I suspect these
days my hearing ends at well under 15kHz - but surely yours doesn't
hear over 40kHz?

No one simple answer to the above, but here are some comments on aspects.

1) The problem is that real DACs aren't perfect. So when replaying 44.1k a
DAC may generate effects which extend well below 22.05kHz.

2) Simple plots of what single-frequency tones someone can hear don't tell
you about what happens when they hear more complicated time varying signals
with many components. Look on the web for the work of Oohashi for example.
Human hearing is non-linear. Real DACs, etc, are non-linear too. The
presence/absence of 'Ultrasonic' components can affect what we perceive.
Depends on the circumstances, etc.

So the advantage of playing 96k material on a good system is that it tends
to shove these problems further away from the regions where they can have
an effect on what we hear.

And in practice, once you're recorded and processed using 96k/24 there
doesn't seem much point in downgrading the result in the age of cheap
multi-TB drives.

Jim

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