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cam
12-30-2004, 09:48 PM
My new dvd/cd player has the HDCD feature. At their web site they say that I can still get sonic improvements even without having a HDCD encoded CD but I have to use the analog out from the player to the receiver. I guess the filtering process will improve all cd's and dvd's. Well I did that and my normal cd's do sound pretty good but they sound way better when I go into the dvd menu, change the PCM digital output, from up to 48khz, up to 96khz and send the signal out of the player through the digital output to my denon 1804. The sound is truely amazing. In the dvd menu I also tried the 192 khz setting but my denon was not able to handle that high of a sampling rate, 96 khz I guess is my denon's limit. When I use to listen to 2-channel music with my old (very old) dvd/cd player through the digital out, my denon would say direct and I could change it to dts neo or dpl music if I so chose. With my new player with the changes I made in the dvd menu my denon now says direct 96k on the display and dts neo and dpl music mode are not an option anymore. The HDCD website convinces you that you will get great sound with any cd whether HDCD encoded or not but I get way better sound the other way. I don't have any HDCD encoded cd's so I can't comment on those, just regular cd's. I know what sounds best to me but should it. I mean when my player up samples to 96khz and I use the digital out it absolutley stomps on the sound through the analog outs with this so called improvement from the HDCD filtering. Does anyone have any comments on why one way sounds so much better then the other.

Feanor
12-31-2004, 02:11 PM
My new dvd (http://forums.audioreview.com/newreply.php#)/cd player has the HDCD feature. At their web site they say that I can still get sonic improvements even without having a HDCD encoded CD (http://forums.audioreview.com/newreply.php#) but I have to use the analog out from the player to the receiver. I guess the filtering process will improve all cd's and dvd's. Well I did that and my normal cd's do sound pretty good but they sound way better when I go into the dvd menu, change the PCM digital output, from up to 48khz, up to 96khz and send the signal out of the player through the digital output to my denon 1804...
What is your Denon doing with an analog signal? If it is converting your analog input back to digital, (for DSP bass management, etc.), it isn't too surprising that the sound isn't as good as direct digital input. If it's possible on the Denon, make sure that the unit is set to send the analog input "direct" to the power amplifier (#) section, then do your comparison with the PCM input.

If the analog signal is going direct to the power section and still doesn't sound as good as the PCM input, then the upsampling, (16/44.1 to 24/96), done by your DVD player is of greater benefit than the HDCD processing for whatever reason.

zonik
12-31-2004, 03:41 PM
If the original CD is 16 bit @ 44.1khz, then sampling it at a higher rate is not going to improve an accurate read at 44.1khz. Data is data, oversampling is not going to improve the sound. It is possible that the 16 bits are put into a 24 bit word, which the DA conversion may alter it some (just a guess), but the bottom line is the bits is bits and the quality of what you are hearing if the amplification is the same, is the quality difference of the DA engines you have. People spend ALOT of money on their DACs

New Car or DAC ? (http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1108237808)

cam
12-31-2004, 05:16 PM
What is your Denon doing with an analog signal? If it is converting your analog input back to digital, (for DSP bass management, etc.), it isn't too surprising that the sound isn't as good as direct digital input. If it's possible on the Denon, make sure that the unit is set to send the analog input "direct" to the power amplifier (#) section, then do your comparison with the PCM input.

If the analog signal is going direct to the power section and still doesn't sound as good as the PCM input, then the upsampling, (16/44.1 to 24/96), done by your DVD player is of greater benefit than the HDCD processing for whatever reason.
I sent the analog outs of the player to "direct 2-channel" it sounded good, I sent the digital out of the player to the receiver and played it in direct mode, the players digital pcm out was set at 48 khz in the players menu and again it sounded good. But when I changed the digital pcm out to 96khz in the player menu with the digital out going to my denon it sounded really good. I did a blind test with my wife and she said the same thing. It was a night and day improvement to me and my wife. Having my player up sample to 96khz and sent out the digital out is to me a vast improvement in sound then using the analog outs and having the HDCD processing do the improvements. If I use a HDCD encoded cd, maybe then the anolog outs will sound better then the up sampling out the digital outs. At hdcd.com they say the anologs will sound at their best with regular cd's but to me, nope, not even close. Maybe me and my wife are 2 in a million.

cam
12-31-2004, 05:20 PM
If the original CD is 16 bit @ 44.1khz, then sampling it at a higher rate is not going to improve an accurate read at 44.1khz. Data is data, oversampling is not going to improve the sound. It is possible that the 16 bits are put into a 24 bit word, which the DA conversion may alter it some (just a guess), but the bottom line is the bits is bits and the quality of what you are hearing if the amplification is the same, is the quality difference of the DA engines you have. People spend ALOT of money on their DACs

New Car or DAC ? (http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1108237808)
Maybe the upsampling is introducing harmonic distortion or something that is making it sound (to me) more dynamic and 3 dimensional.

hermanv
01-02-2005, 11:03 AM
Actually upsampling can improve sound quality. The main reason is that the analog output filters can be improved as the frequency they need to remove (the sampling frequency) is further fom the higest audio signal that needs to be preserved. Many upsamplers either add bits extending 16 to as much as 24 or they dither the LSB for evey other sample to improve the noise floor. Admittedly both of these techniques make pretty small improvements but to a large degree small improvements is what high end as opossed to typical stereo is all about.

People spend a lot of money on the D to A process because after you have decent equipment this yields the biggest improvements in redbook CD sound. Read owner reviews of some truly high end converters where owners say things like "who needs SACD, my new XXXX D to A sounds just as good" In my case, I bought a used Levinson D to A - unlistenable CDs became good and good CDs became spectacular. Most bang I ever got for my audiophile dollar.

Feanor
01-02-2005, 11:25 AM
In my case something different and stranger is going on. CDs sound better through my Pannasonic SA-XR25 receiver using the analog outputs of my CD player. You might say, OK, the CDP's DAC is better than the XR25's, but we need to remember that the XR25 has not have "direct" analog play-through: it converts all analog to digital, (at 24/96, I believe).

So what's going on? Despite being converted to analog, then back to digital, the sound is better than straight digital. Apparently the Panny really hates 16/44.1 input. Weird.