2. digital
  3. 169879-41852

16 bit vs 24 bit vs 35 bit vs 36 bit vs 64 bit DAC sampling

I have limited knowledge about DAC's, but as I understand it, a typical CD player used to have 16 bit sampling, and supposedly no one was supposed to be able to hear the difference between anything more than 16 bit sampling; however, I recently purchased an Esoteric K-01X, which has 35 bit sampling (why 35 bits? no doubt only to differentiate it from their then top of the line 36 bit sampled Grandioso series).  

Now I can hear a big difference between my old Musical Fidelity kW DM25 DAC with 24 bit sampling (circa 2005), and the newer Esoteric DAC with 35 bit sampling, although I'm not supposed to, although maybe there are some other electrical programs playing with the sound besides the sampling rate.  

Now, there are 64 bit sampling DAC's, and I'm wondering how much the ear actually does hear from the sampling, or if it's something else entirely that's making the digital sound better?  

Any insightful opinions or perspectives?  

Thanks.
drbond

Showing 1 response by headphonedreams

headphonedreams
523 posts
 
They do some processing at higher bitrates. If they have a digital volume control it is better to start with 32 bits than 24 since they will basically throw away bits later.

Other processing than volume is possible and there it is also better to start with more bits.

For sampling frequency it is usually the filtering you want to improve. They need to have filters and the filters affect the sound quality. If they start with 96kHz the filter hopefully only affects a part of the spectrum we can't hear.

There are articles about this If you google. For everyone saying that you can't improve the signal from what was as input that is actually wrong. You may make it worse but you can calculate more samples in a way that it probably improves the sound for most music. You just need math and a very fast processor. The Chord MScaler does this if I am not mistaken. 
More to discover