Hi Mezmo,
I guess I confused you as much as I was confused. I wasn't trying at all to articulate why it would be better, but simply find out if it could be. My experience mirrors yours. Usually I prefer Native resolution playing files, but there were a few that I prefered up converted...as you, in multiples of 2. I did have some 16/44 that was a tad smoother and seemed to be a tad faster when upconverting to 24/176, but normally, I found native to be ever so slightly harmonically richer... That was upconverting a file through the DAC. Last night, I actually changed a file resolution. Well, my observation... Converting Flac to WAV, on normal to very good recordings, I found the WAV file to improve over Flac, a touch more focus and a touch tighter bass, no loss of detail. On High quality recordings???not so much, had a hard time telling them apart, sometimes felt like I could, but most likely me just thinking my old ears still have it, most likely no difference. Thats were it stands as of now, but I've only listened about an hour and a half. Again, this started because I respect Steve N's opinion and have seen in a couple of threads say that he recommended converting FLAC... I just happened across the upconversion. I'm going to try 24/44.1 next.
I guess I confused you as much as I was confused. I wasn't trying at all to articulate why it would be better, but simply find out if it could be. My experience mirrors yours. Usually I prefer Native resolution playing files, but there were a few that I prefered up converted...as you, in multiples of 2. I did have some 16/44 that was a tad smoother and seemed to be a tad faster when upconverting to 24/176, but normally, I found native to be ever so slightly harmonically richer... That was upconverting a file through the DAC. Last night, I actually changed a file resolution. Well, my observation... Converting Flac to WAV, on normal to very good recordings, I found the WAV file to improve over Flac, a touch more focus and a touch tighter bass, no loss of detail. On High quality recordings???not so much, had a hard time telling them apart, sometimes felt like I could, but most likely me just thinking my old ears still have it, most likely no difference. Thats were it stands as of now, but I've only listened about an hour and a half. Again, this started because I respect Steve N's opinion and have seen in a couple of threads say that he recommended converting FLAC... I just happened across the upconversion. I'm going to try 24/44.1 next.