Upsample or Native playback

mdkim

mdkim

New member
Joined
Apr 5, 2013
Messages
605
Location
Manhattan Beach, CA
Since there are a few of us now - and I don't think this is limited to Lumin users - I am wondering how many of you upsample your recordings. It was simple with my DAC2X as I didn't have a choice (everything was upsampled) but the Lumin let's you play everything native or you can pick and choose specific sample rates to upsample.

So far I've simply upsampled everything but I haven't played with it enough to know. Any advice? What does everyone else do?
 
Hi Michael,

I tend to up-sample more if the songs contain vocals. I am not sure why but I think it can sound more natural and more real. I tend to play instrumentals as is with no up-sampling. I am still learning.
 
Last edited:
I upsample Redbook CD rip to DSD. It sounds more analog to me. And keep hires at native.

Try they all and hear what you like! :)
 
Playing with upsampling, I kind of like redbook to 88.2khz. All the detail is still there. 44.1 to DSD is also good.
 
My Meridian upsamples and it sure sounds good.

I was listening to the dcs Vivaldi stack yesterday and the options are numerous. I might try the DAC out in my system to see if which method I prefer in a more familiar set-up.
 
As I got more and more into the digital audio realm, I realized that the more I upsampled, the less I liked it - so now I run native rate on everything. Most DACs nowadays will auto sample from a native rate far better than trying to lock into a rate from a source component.
 
After playing with it a little, I have settled on native rate. But thats just me, it really is good to have the options though.
 
Curious to see if anyone's opinion has changed on this? My Lumin probably isnt broken in completely yet but redbooks upsampled sound better to my ears. I couldnt really hear much difference in highrez being upsampled.
 
I did...and on a few tracks I get a very faint hiss. I wasn't going to mention it yet as I am running the lumin as a preamp (less than ideal I know). So I'm not sure if that's the issue or not.
 
bthomas9 said:
I did...and on a few tracks I get a very faint hiss. I wasn't going to mention it yet as I am running the lumin as a preamp (less than ideal I know). So I'm not sure if that's the issue or not.
Click to expand...

If you get a "faint hiss" after upsampling from 44.1kHz to DSD on LUMIN A1, you may try turning on the "Ultrasonic Filter" option and see if it's better.
 
This thread is a bit misguided, no? Unless its a Lumin only thread.

Lumin will have a fixed upsampling algorithm, while one can buy different upsampling functions inthe PC/Mac world to do the same and potentially benefit from "better" algorithms. JRiver 19 does the same on the fly as does the current favourite, HQ Player. They say HQP is the one that performs best at the moment.

Therefore the REAL question is not if its is better than native on the Lumin, its if its better using the "best" available software.

The final point I see being discussed is that even if you use a great SRC algorithm, the DSD signal still needs to go through the DAC's modulators (quality bottleneck) and so that must be factored in as well. Running through a chipless DSD Dac design would have a definite advantage here.
 
Reportedly JRiver supports PCM to DSD upsampling and can be used as a compatible control point for LUMIN via UPnP protocol with gapless playback support. So yes, it'd be interesting to compare the JRiver upsampling against the LUMIN internal upsampling - of course a computer has a much faster CPU and can potentially adopt a more sophisticated algorithm.
 
wisnon said:
This thread is a bit misguided, no? Unless its a Lumin only thread.

Lumin will have a fixed upsampling algorithm, while one can buy different upsampling functions inthe PC/Mac world to do the same and potentially benefit from "better" algorithms. JRiver 19 does the same on the fly as does the current favourite, HQ Player. They say HQP is the one that performs best at the moment.

Therefore the REAL question is not if its is better than native on the Lumin, its if its better using the "best" available software.

The final point I see being discussed is that even if you use a great SRC algorithm, the DSD signal still needs to go through the DAC's modulators (quality bottleneck) and so that must be factored in as well. Running through a chipless DSD Dac design would have a definite advantage here.
Click to expand...

Wisnon, I use to mess with different cables, DACs, JRiver, upsampling...but found myself tinkering more than listening. To a point i was frustrated with music. The lumin maybe not be the definitive at any single thing, but it is exceptional at almost everything. Its sonically great, and once setup, the interface is super easy to use.

And the best thing, I get to listen for an hour or two at a time instead of 20 minutes of listening and 40 minutes of trying to figure out why one format plays and the other one doesnt...or different bitrates wont play only to figure out it was a limitation of something i changed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top