[ProAudio] [ProAud] The High-Resolution Challenge

[Bob Katz]

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> On Feb 11, 2020, at 6:20 PM, Scott Dorsey via ProAudio <proaudio at bach.pgm.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> Thus I am 99.9999999% convinced that the sonic differences between
>> sample rates are not due to the bandwidth, but rather to the
>> performance of the converters themselves.
> 
> This being the case, though, isn't this a good reason to use a higher
> sample rate?  Even if you downsample or upsample it in order to use
> it?

Yes, of course. But it’s also a reason not to reject a master which was well made and which was made from a single rare source, and upsampled for mastering processing. I can demonstrate clearly that if we audition and use my 96k master it sounds better than the 44.1 reduction which I also produce. 

And if you then argue that the consumer could upsample my 44.1 production master for his own purposes it can be done and will sound better. However, he then does not have a product which sounds as good as my original which is 1 or 2 generations earlier and he also probably does not have access to my Weiss Saracon sample rate converter. 


> 
> Also... as always, it's a lot easier to hear that things sound different
> and a lot harder to hear which one is actually better.  I have heard a
> number of converters that I am pretty sure sound better at lower sample
> rates.

Acknowledged. But My converters sound better at double and 4x rates. Most modern day sigma-delta converters do, if you believe the anecdotal listening evidence and the technical reasons I cited. When I master I first upssmple. Then I may analog process or digitally process or both. And for valid technical reasons these processes perform better at the higher sample rate. 

BK


> 
> I remember back in the Bad Old Days of digital when a number of machines
> sounded much better at 48 ksamp/sec than at 44.1... and investigation
> determined that most of them were using the same filter constants for
> both....except for the Wadia D/A which had no proper reconstruction filter 
> at all...
> --scott
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