Upsampling

Posted by: u77033103172058601 on 20 February 2018

Popped into my local dealer for a bit of a natter/listen today. His Statement/808 system was all set up for a quick listen to the new Chord Blu2. Interestingly the device was being used to upsample from a Melco N1Z to a Chord Dave.
 
We listened to 3 different set-ups (a) straight Melco (b) upsampled Melco and (c) upsampled CD (the Chord). All 3 were different. The CD was the one used to effect the rip, so the source was nominally identical.
 
My clear preference was the upsampled-from-Melco version. The CD (even up-sampled) was least favourite. And this was on a simple solo piano track.
 
Were I interested in going down the streaming route then the set-up would be worth a longer, much longer listen.
 
But, in a world where bits are bits, is anyone prepared to offer an explanation for the audible effects of up-sampling? 
Posted on: 20 February 2018 by Huge

It alters the noise distribution (which then has slightly different effects on the subsequent analogue stages) and the digital filtering / reconstruction algorithms (which are then less optimised for the original data - the DAC now 'thinks' the native data format is as per the upsampled data, so it sets up a different optimisation scheme).

What it doesn't do is give you any more information or objectively better sound quality; it may however sound different, and you may (subjectively) prefer that different sound signature.

Posted on: 20 February 2018 by u77033103172058601

I am not  huge fan of objectiveness in sound quality, otherwise I would have a Quad 33/303. I did hear an uplift in sound quality, in the sense that there was less hash, greater separation of notes and a lot of extra detail. That might have been added detail, but it did sound rather fine.

With my CD player entering its dementia years and liable to turn its toes up at any time, I am going to have to have a serious listen to what is on offer.

Posted on: 20 February 2018 by Eloise
Nick from Suffolk posted:
We listened to 3 different set-ups (a) straight Melco (b) upsampled Melco and (c) upsampled CD (the Chord). All 3 were different. The CD was the one used to effect the rip, so the source was nominally identical.
Just to clarify ... with (b) was that Melco into the Chord Blu2 and then (I assume) fed to the Chord DAVE?  Or did you mean the Melco itself was set to upsample?
But, in a world where bits are bits, is anyone prepared to offer an explanation for the audible effects of up-sampling? 

Well as the DAVE (using my assumption above) does its own upsampling, using the Blu2 avoids that upsampling and offloads it to the separate device - this may affect "noise" in the DAC.  Also upsampling is going to use different algorithms depending what device is doing the upsampling.

Posted on: 20 February 2018 by Huge
Nick from Suffolk posted:

I am not  huge fan of objectiveness in sound quality, otherwise I would have a Quad 33/303. I did hear an uplift in sound quality, in the sense that there was less hash, greater separation of notes and a lot of extra detail. That might have been added detail, but it did sound rather fine.

With my CD player entering its dementia years and liable to turn its toes up at any time, I am going to have to have a serious listen to what is on offer.

What it doesn't do is give you any more information or objectively better sound quality; it may however sound different, and you may (subjectively) prefer that different sound signature.

Posted on: 21 February 2018 by tonym
Eloise posted: Just to clarify ... with (b) was that Melco into the Chord Blu2 and then (I assume) fed to the Chord DAVE?  Or did you mean the Melco itself was set to upsample?

It's the Blu2 that does the upsampling, not the Melco. I'm very tempted to try the Blu2, but I  understand Chord will be coming out with a "Blu" that has the upsampling but not the CD player mechanism, at lesser cost. I've no use for the CD player bit, can't see the point of it when you've got a Melco supplying the music.