Pre upsample at rip vs upsample live

[Kingrex]

So many people are talking about upsampling and preferring it sound. Has anybody compared up sampling your CDs when you rip them. How does that compare to up sampling a file during playback. I know some ripping programs will allow you to take a standard Redbook format and rip it to 24 192. In other places I've heard people say this does nothing sonically. What if you could rip it all the way to 512. Wouldn't this require a lot less computation power from a server playing it back at a higher resolution rather than trying to do the processing up up sampling during the playback process. What are people's thoughts or experiences with this.

 

[nicoff]

I believe that a big constraint would be the size of the files. I have bought and downloaded several hi-rez files both in DSD and PCM formats.

For any track, the higher the resolution the bigger the file size.

So a 512DSD version of a DSD64 file would require, say, 8 times the storage. I know that storage is cheap but it is certainly not free.

Also, I am not aware of any software that will let one upsample to DSD512.

There might be other constraints that I am not aware of.

 

[wklie]

1. Upsampled file size can be big, as @nicoff said.
2. Often people like to experiment with different upsampling algorithms / settings, in Roon or HQPlayer. Pre-upsampling at rip means sacrificing this flexibility.
3. Some DAC sound best with DSD, some DAC sound best with PCM. If you upgrade the DAC in the future, you may want to use a different upsampling format or sample rate.
4. It's best to keep a bit perfect rip of the original, even if you want to process it before playback.

 

[Kingrex]

I did not know the increased bits added a sound. I thought it was the filters. It seems no one is doing a pre upsample. I was just curious. Storage space is really a mute point if you figure your taking your favorite 50 or so album to pre upsample. I just hear people I really respect saying upsampling is resource intensive and very noisy. It does not work well on my server. I was just wondering if there was a way around it. People seen to gravitate to 24/192 files when available. To me it seemed a logical ask. I guess I could try and do a few myself.

 

[astrotoy]

Rex,

My new (used) DAC (Lampi GG with the latest upgrades on both the PCM and DSD sides) will do on the PCM side up to DXD384, and on the DSD side up to DSD512. I use Roon with HQP doing the heavy lifting for the upconverting. The computer was custom built for heavy lifting. It has a i7-6950X processor (which is 10 cores and 20 threads - not sure what that means exactly, but that is supposed to be very powerful). I received the computer about 17 months ago, so there are probably even more powerful processors commonly in use.

I find the best results sonically to upconvert all DSD files to 512, but keep the PCM files native (most of my files are 192/24 that I ripped from vinyl or tape - about 40TB worth) but I also have a lot of DSD64 downloads or SACD rips, including multichannel files, and a fair number of native DSD256 and native DXD352 files in stereo. It takes a lot of computing power especially to upconvert DSD64 multichannel to DSD256 which I play back on my NADAC mch.

No preconversions that I have done, although I do have some files that were preconverted from DSD to PCM and given to me. They were originally preconverted for use in a Berkeley Audio DAC which only does PCM. I don't have the original DSD files to compare.
Larry

 

[Kingrex]

You know Larry, I think I'm hearing a pretty common theme. People are upsample dsd, but not so much pcm. My DAC is pcm only. I might try a pre upsample one day for kicks and giggles. I'm just curious if it was a possibility to do the noisy lifting ahead of time.

By the way, are you Ethernet or USB to your DAC?

 

[Randy Myers]

I upsample everything on my server; CD rips, DSD Downloads (up to DSD256), SACD Rips (DSD64), PCM Downloads (up to 192KHz). I play all files at DSD512/48 (24.6Mhz). Many CDs sound like original DSD files... simply amazing (obviously it depends on the original recording).

I have tried pre-upsampling in the past (not to DSD512, but to DSD256). Size became a huge problem in fairly short order; the massive NAS type storage does not apply, other than as backups because I prefer internal SSD drives, but more importantly, I did not like the sound. I felt the original files sounded better.

The only upsampling that I have ever enjoyed is the sound when I purchased HQPlayer (including Roon upsampling). In my opinion it is the best playback engine available. Therefore I use Roon as the controller and data keeper, and Roon using HQPlayer as the engine.

I only use USB to my DAC because my DAC can only accept DSD512 through a USB port. I do use what I consider fairly decent cables in the AudioQuest Coffee USBs. I also use a W4S Recovery which keeps the USB Signal in order, but requires me to use two Coffee's...