24/96 vs 24/192 DAC

I will likely be castigated for this, but after listening to upsampling to 24/96 and 24/192 on a dCS Purcell, I believe it is primarily marketing hype. I believe that the current DVD-V and DVD-A standard is 24/96 (others please correct me if I'm wrong), and I hear no real significant differences to my ears that I can consistently identify between the two sampling rates, as opposed to my clearly hearing the difference between redbook CD and upsampled CDs or true 24/96 discs. None of these sampling rates has anything to do with SACD; that's a different animal. I think you can buy true 24 bit/96khz sampling DACs without giving anything up. Note, though, that if you're playing redbook CDs on the units, the DACs are only at best upsampling to 24/96 (assuming that they do upsample); you won't get true 24 bit resolution from a CD, and you won't be able to play SACDs or, unless these are DVD or DVD-A players you're referring to, DVD-A or DAD discs on them. Just my $.02.

thanks Rcprince. I am more confuse as ever. please correct me as I am a tech newbie:
redbook cds - regular cds as we call them, sample @ 96khz
sacd - superaudio cd, sample @ 192khz??? can only play in sacd player or universal player
dvd-a - dvd audio format sample @ 96khz??? can only play in dvd-a player or universal player
HDCD - ?????

Or are the cd formats and the upsampling rate are indepentent of each other????? thanks

redbook cd's - 16 bit, 44.1 khz
SACD - 1 bit, ~ 2.9 Mhz (can't remember sampling rate
exactly, dependent on frequency?)
DVD-A - varies, max 24 bit, 192 khz
HDCD - 20 bit, 44.1 khz?

All use PCM stream except SACD which is DSD

I'm really not the one to be giving technical information, but I'll give it a try here, and hope that someone with better information can correct me:

1. Redbook CD is the regular CD you buy at the store. I believe that the players you mentioned above are regular redbook CD players. A redbook CD has 16 bits of information sampled at 44.1 Khz stored on it. A redbook player with "upsampling" capability can add digital noise to come up with a 24 bit/96 or possibly 192 khz signal to be processed, but it really can't add any information to the CD's information (although I do think a properly implemented upsampler such as the dCS Purcell can make a CD SOUND better). But a CD player without upsampling capability will only give you a 16 bit/44.1khz signal from a CD. There may be a reason that a true 24-bit DAC might be better at decoding a regular CD than a 16-bit DAC, but I'm not aware of it.

2. SACD does not sample at 192khz, it's some ridiculously high number. You need an SACD player or a universal player to play the SACD layer of an SACD. I don't think either of the units you mentioned can read and play back the SACD layer of an SACD.

3. DVD-A is (and I'm generalizing and ignoring the various multichannel and other capabilities here) a pcm-based 24 bit/96 khz medium, which requires a DVD-A player or universal player to decode at this time (I think some DVD players can play them too, but I don't know if they can fully decode the 24/96 signal). There is also another 24/96 medium out there, the DAD (principally available from Classic Records and Chesky), which is DVD-video based and likely to be left by the wayside in the high-rez wars, can play on a regular DVD player (not a CD player, though) and can, if your DVD player has a digital output that can output a 24 bit/96khz signal, be played through an external DAC with 24/96 capability. I think, and someone please correct me, that DVD-A still has an encryption scheme in the software that prevents a 24/96 digital signal from being passed from a DVD-A player, so you can't currently use an external DAC to play a DVD-A disc.

4. HDCD is a 16 bit/44.1khz medium, with some special encrypted signal or something manipulation that does make a sonic difference from the standard redbook layer but requires a decoder in your CD player to reap all its benefits.

This is really basic, and pretty confusing. Bottom line is that if you buy a redbook CD player, you won't be able to play anything other than CDs in it; if it has 24 bit DACs in it and 96khz sampling capability, it can possibly sound better than a standard CD player, but you should check the archives under "upsampling" to get an idea of the controversy around that process.

DVD-A can be done at 24/192khz

Ive got several DVD-A discs, Metallica Black, BB King Riding with the King, Stone Temple Pilots, Doors La Woman, and a couple others. They all sound sweet, well, the Stone temple pilots sucks...

BB King and Metallica sound incredible, but they are only 24/96. Not all DVD's run with any particular sample rate, some are 24/96, some are 24/192, some sample like redbook.

the ONLY recordings I have that are done in 24/196 are a few of the songs on the DVD-A demo disk.

The difference between the 24/96 and 24/192 is barly audible in my opinion. That coould be a result of lack of material i own in the 24/196 rate, I suppose in time as with any new technology it might pay to go ahead and get one with the 196/24, as with new any hardware it always takes a while for the quality software to start pumpin out.

Worry more about the implementation than whether an audio component has a "specific" technology or not. I would not pass up a 24/96 or even a non-upsampling DAC just because it is not 24/192. Same thing with DAC chips. Who cares whether it uses Burr brown 1704k's or DSD1792's. If it sounds good enough, then that alone should be good enough. It's all about implementation.

One thing I do know...it's a damn confusing mess! I have a "universal" player (Denon 2900) and it, like the previous one, (Pioneer DV45A) knows how to figure out what to do, so I don't really need to know.

For DVD-A 96KHz is all you get for 5.1 multichannel, but if the recording is only stereo, 192KHz is possible. I have the impression that DVD-A, unlike SACD, is a very flexible protocol. The disc producer has a certain amount of data bandwidth to work with, and can allocate it as he chooses.(eg: #channels, sampling rate, coefficients for realtime mixdown to stereo, video, etc.)

The 44.1 KHz sampling rate of regular (redbook) CDs is really cutting it close to the minimum acceptable for 20KHz audio. The oft-quoted Nyquist criteria for signal fidelity(sampling rate should be at least twice the highest frequerncy of interest) applies to sine waves, and we know that music is not a pure sine wave. Increasing the sample rate to 96KHz is a significant improvement. Going higher than that provides little if any improvement. Of course 24 bits can more accurately represent an analog waveform, and/or give greater dynamic range, but the benefit will not be realized in practice unless the analog signal processing is also good.