24/192 Big Improvement Over 24/96????

When I first started using HDTracks a year or so ago, I bought several (6-8) albums on both 24/96 and 24/192 to do comparisons.

On my system, in my room and with my ears, the 24/192 seems to suck the "life" (air) out of the music. Very sterile sounding. The 24/96 is a little better than regular redbook CDs, but not by a huge margin, which really surprised me. I am using an Olive 04HD into an Eastern Electric MiniMax DAC.

Of course, this is what I hear and I've read that others have the same perception and others think I'm crazy, (which I probably am), so YMMV.

in my experience (4 years into hi-res), it can go either way. i've experimented with over a dozen 96 vs 192 recordings and still wouldn't/can't say which resolution "sounds better". when one does sound better then the other, i wouldn't call it a "big improvement". it's rather subtle imho.

the only hi-res conclusions i've reached so far(regarding my rig/room/ears)

1) my best 192 recordings sound "better" then my best 96's....but then a good 96 sounds better then a "not so good" 192 =). have also found some very good redbook recordings that can trump my not so good higher res recordings

2) hi res WAV (96 and 192) burned to dvd sounds better then the same recording/resolution streamed from FLAC. *i think* this has more to do with the synergy between my transport/dac then the file type itself, but thought i'd throw it out there regardless.(or maybe it's the limitations of streaming itself??)

sorry, i have no factual explanation to support/back up either of my conclusions. seems resolution is just a single aspect/variable in the complex formula that yields "the best sound".

cheers

Thanks for your help/insight guys. For the time being I am going to stick with 24/96 FLAC. I will download Kind Of Blue tonight and report back soon. BTW, my system is a MacBook Air (running Audirvana Plus) USB to an Oppo 105 for decoding then analog out (via XLR stereo) to a Krell HTS 7.1 (just a glorified volume control in this application (no decoding) to a Krell TAS and eventually B&W N801s. Sound great to me.

Sorry to throw water on this OP, but please read the article which can be found by clicking on the link below.

http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

The author maintains that the recording, engineering and mastering process are the most important aspects of high quality anything, not format.

Bruce

I agree the recording/mastering is the biggest factor. That said, I think what Chord Electronics has to say about hires is interesting .. 1st four paragraphs in particular:

http://www.chordelectronics.co.uk/chord-dac-technology.asp

Mgattmch...24/192 is better. The key thing with 24/192 is a cleaner sound that eliminates more digital artifacts/fatigue. You will get more expert advice on this question on the computer audiophile site.

Bifwynne, and the paper at the xiph link he gives, is precisely correct. Formats for playback at a bit depth & sample rate higher than 16/44.1 do not and can not sound *intrinsicly* one bit (pun intended) better to human hearing. In fact, they may in some real world circumstances actually sound worse. Studios, including myself, often do their work using higher bit depths & sample rates for very valid technical reasons. The critical difference to the final listening experience is in the mixing, mastering and the final conversion to 16/44.1. (NOTE: typically different masters are produced for different formats, including, most especially, LP.) IF studio production is done properly (too often it isn't, IMHO), and IF the playback kit is of even moderately good quality, 16/44.1 has the potential to give the final listener as good sound quality as can be had. Any higher rate format should at the very least be a waste of media space and money. If you think you hear a difference, and you may, be assured that the difference is NOT due to the format itself.

My Cary 303/300 CDP has user-selectable upsampling. This feature allows me to tailor the sound of each recording. Not all recordings sound better at higher sampling rates. In other words, I think the answer to OP's question is unknowable.

The xiph.org article concentrates only on whether a given signal can be described sufficiently by 16/44.1. Several subtle and crucial differences between storage and playback of such a file have been pointed out in a white paper by Marco at HiFace and elsewhere.

The discrepancy between viewpoints is at least partly due to the variable behaviour of 16/44.1, 24/96, 24/192 and DSD files in each DAC. The bottom line is that is depends largely on which converter you're using and how it handles not only higher bit rates, but also bit rates based on 44.1MHz and 48MHz families (ie 24/88.2 vs 24/96).

So, yes, you could argue the difference is due to the format itself, but it would be truer to say that the real issue is how each converter handles the format, and less about how 'much information' it contains.