How to set bit rate & sample rate on sound card?

[phileserver39]

Good Evening folks,

I have a sound card whose bit rate and sample rate can be manually adjusted from 16 to 24 and from 44.1 to 192 khz respectively. My question is this: does it effect sound quality if I keep it on 24/ 192 no matter what the source material? Keeping it "maxed" is easier since I sometimes play some music files which are at 24/192 however, mostly I play redbook quality material.

I understand that the dac "fills in zeros" when lacking info. I just don't know if this is a detriment when playing redbook flac files.

Thanks in advance for your time and expertise!

Best,

Jason

[poppachubby]

The short answer is yes, it does. Whether the result is positive or not is really up to your ears.

If you are playing source material of 16/44.1 (all RBCD) then the card is going to upsample to the higher rate. Depending on how good your card is, it may sound good or it may be loaded with artifacts and sound like chit. Frankly, upsampling is a tricky process to execute flawlessly.

My advice to you is to put on some transparent (revealing) headphones and run some experiments. I would be interested in your results.

My own opinion on the matter is that it's usually fruitless to fight against a source rate. Like I already mentioned, alot of machines/cards tout all kinds of wonderful upsampling abilities, but at the end of the day, sound like chit when executed. I think that 16/44.1 is a fine rate when done correctly, rather than poorly upsampled content.

Now if you have source content which is hi rez, that's a different story, but it sounds like you are listening mostly to basic 16/44.

I will admit to you that my interest in digital is not very intense. I have a meager set up and don't strive for upgrades. Am I biased? Probably, but I am also a realist. My DAC is non-over sampling and can only perform to a maximum of 16/96, but then again that's all that Zanden can do, so take from that what you will.

Here's a nice article regarding your topic,...

http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio-formats-technology/upsampling-vs-oversampling-for-digital-audio

[Feanor]

Good Evening folks,

I have a sound card whose bit rate and sample rate can be manually adjusted from 16 to 24 and from 44.1 to 192 khz respectively. My question is this: does it effect sound quality if I keep it on 24/ 192 no matter what the source material? Keeping it "maxed" is easier since I sometimes play some music files which are at 24/192 however, mostly I play redbook quality material.

I understand that the dac "fills in zeros" when lacking info. I just don't know if this is a detriment when playing redbook flac files.

Thanks in advance for your time and expertise!

Best,

Jason
Read you s/c's manual to determine exactly what it does when you set a higher bit/sample freq than the music file.

Most likely, as Poppa suggests, it will upsample it a lower bit rate. On the other hand, possibly it just passes the lower bit rate unaltered -- and/or if you set, say,16/44.1 that it will downsample 24/192 to that the lower rate, which you wouldn't want.

Upsampling can be a good thing depending on the implementation. Upsampled sound can be high-frequency-filtered without the phase shifts caused by filtering 44.1; (the same thing can be accomplished by oversampling -- see Poppa's reference). However upsampling does something else too: it forces re-clocking which can reduce jitter which can improve the sound -- or it might introduce more artifacts that make the final result worse overall. Most current DACs incorporate oversampling on-chip, and many today incorporate upsampling on-chip; either way on-chip processing is unlikey to introduce addition jitter.