24/96 transport??

Assuming you're talking about the possiblity of playing the 24/96 DADs from Chesky, Classic, etc., you do need a transport that will pass the full 24/96 signal to take advantage of the extended resolution and dynamics that format offers. Some DVD players contend they can handle 24/96 disks, but in reality they downconvert them to 16/44 which is what your DAC would ultimately see. Some common DVD players that do pass the full 24/96 are Pioneer and Sony, and probably a few others along with the higher-end units, but you should check before you buy. I don't think there are any CD players/transports that can read the 24/96 format, but I could be wrong.

That said, you certainly can use a lower-rez 16/44 transport with a 24/96 capable DAC and get great results with redbook CDs as long as you're using a good quality transport and digital cable. Hope this helps.

Tim

Tim:

Thanks for the response. What puzzles me is why Levinson owners, for example, who use the 37 transport which, as I understand it, does NOT pass a 24/96 signal, would upgrade to the 24/96 Levinson DAC. Isn't it like pumping 93 octane gas into a Ford Escort? Aren't the benefits of 24/96 dacs wasted if a 24/96 capable transport isn't used?

Hi Jmslaw; The Levinson DACs do 8X over-sampling in the DAC at a requency sampling rate of 352.8 MHZ on "redbook" CDs-- much higher than the 96 MHZ rate you refer too. Upsampling and over-sampling are different terms for the same thing. If interested, look up the previous threads on the subject.

As of now, there are very, very few digital discs that are 24/96 encoded, ie a few hundred SACDs, and a handful of DVD-As. Madrigal has a player in the works that will play 24/96 discs, but like the rest of us, they don't know whether SACD or DVD-A will win the format war.

Just because a "redbook CD" player up-samples the 16/44.1 signal to a higher sample rate does not mean it's going to sound superior to an over-sampling design such as that which Madrigal uses. I think you may be confusing the encoding on the disc with the DA conversion rate? A 16/44.1 encoded disc will never have the amount of information on it that a 24/96 encoded disc will-- no matter how much you manipulate it. Cheers. Craig.