Thoughts on up-sampling
 

Thought I would run this past everyone before I try it. I seem to prefer the smoother nature of up-sampling thru my player and Lumin. Would it be best to up-sample with the lumin (K01x up-sampling off), or use it set to native and up-sample with the K01x DAC?

I've always believed upsampling should be done closest to the dac. However, I own a k01x and feel that no upsampling, or maybe only 2x, sounds best.

You should just try both and trust your ears [emoji106]

I have a K-03X and listen to mostly classical music, some Jazz. I've read what others (including reviewers) like and have experimented quite a bit. I generally like 4Fs upconversion with the SDLY1 filter. DSD filter off for SACD playback.

So far I tend to agree with both of you. A small dose (2x or 4x) of up-sampling and use of a filter depending on the material.

DCS Rossini. Depends on the recording. For good ones I don’t like the upsampling. But I like the option since it seems to take the edge off more super compressed rock / pop.

With my Vivaldi I usually go with either DSD or DXD. I have left it on DSD for the last few months.

I have an Ayon CD5S with quad R2R PCM1704K chips. The DAC has the ability to run native 16/44.1 from the CD transport and play up to 24/192 on the SPDIF inputs. It can also upsample the 16/44.1 to 24/192

I also managed to snag some Linn files a while ago and they were able to produce the same track/albums in 16/44.1, 24/96 and 24/192

I found that upsampling the 16/44.1 did indeed produce a sound not dissimilar to the 24/96/192 versions, in particular a smoothness to the sound. But that may or may not be too everyone's liking. In some cases, I prefer the edginess of the original 16/44.1 but that may be a filtering artefact.

What I’ve found is that any difference in audio quality with upsampling+interpolation is due to the digital filters employed in the D/A converter.

I think we are now listening to differences in digital filters more than any other differences in our digital playback systems.

Your thoughts have crossed my mind too. A friend of mine always listens to native format and insists it sounds more detailed. If you look at the math up-sampling should increase detail (resolution) by plotting extra data between native sample points. Indeed we may be hearing artifacts from digital filtering or/and the process of up-sampling may be doing things Science does not fully understand yet.

On my DCS Rossini I prefer DSD upsampling although the DXD setting does sound better on certain recordings...just depends. I leave it on DSD the majority of the time.

- Buck

Op has a k01x, so you rossini people are not helping [emoji1787]

The upsampling to dsd sounds terrible on esoteric gear for some reason, nobody does it. [emoji2369]

Yep......time to upgrade!! :naughty:

- Buck

Upsampling + interpolation doesn't increase the true resolution of the source. It does interpolate between the source data points and adds extra calculated samples. If the over sampling rate is an integer multiple of the source frequency the math is very straight forward.

The biggest impact is it moves the alias frequencies far outside the audio band, allowing for simpler digital and analog reconstruction filters.

I think that is what we hear when we over sample - the filters used by the DAC, not the oversampling process itself.

Tom

+1

Nah, plenty of other options to make it sound fantastic!:banana:

Totally agree.

8Fs is my preference

Great post!

Uhhh, isn’t it really just the shiniest thing that sounds the best?

Like shiny TAD R1 Mk2s for example [emoji16][emoji3][emoji38]

+1

Isn't everything from Burmester done in chrome?

Thoughts on up-sampling
 

Thanks for all your kind comments on my post. Forgot to mention,

I use 4x for 44.1 k and 48 k originals. Sounds best that way on my Yggdrasil.

I am using native for the ‘high res’ content I have.

Still experimenting.

Tom

I decided I prefer up-sampling from the Lumin and setting the K01x up-sampling and pcm filter to off. This works well with the 585's DAC which has no settings for up--sampling.

upsampled to DSD or PCM?

I have to use PCM because the 585's DAC does not accept DSD from the Lumin. I find it irritating that Levinson is not developing drivers that will work with Lumin. That said it sounds quite good with PCM!!!!

The K01x will play both formats.

Reviving an old thread. I just got a demo unit Vivaldi + upsampler and was playing with all the settings. I left my black special edition k-01x plugged in so I could compare the improvements. The k-01x is great, but at 3x the retail price the Vivaldi duo should show some improvements. Well, it does, mostly in the vocals being cleaner and more realistic (relatively, both are good). So I decided to mess with some upsampling settings and even fed the esoteric with the dcs upsampler instead of the on-board upsampling. That got things a little closer, but by coax the max coming in was 192 or DSDx1. Then I remembered the Roon nucleus can upsample to 384 to my opticalRendu and see what happens. Long story short things got again a little closer. Hardware upsampling left at 4x and Filter was spldy2, then I set the filter to off which I liked better for unrolled off highs (I think). I’m not sure if I ever did an a/b with Roon up sampling before but if I did maybe I thought esoteric’s alone was fuller and kept with it? Or the filter off with my older cables was harsher? In any case, I thought I had reached the limits of the esoteric. Try Roon up sampling and then hardware upsampling combos, you might be surprised.

That's the way I understand it also.
I let my streamer upsample everything to 4Fs.
It sounds really better.