2. digital
  3. 124357-2257

"Shouty" treble with hi res files

When listening to many of my purchased high resolution files, I have experienced what I can only describe as (1) strange 'shouty' treble coming at certain times (usually not very long - just for one part of a passage at certain frequencies) from my system, together with (2) very etched highs overall. I usually purchase the 192/24 FLAC format files. 

For example, this occurred on files of REM's Automatic for the People and Out of Time in the 192/24 formats, while my CD burn to FLAC of the same albums does not produce these sounds. I have tried two different DACS (Rega DAC and the Halide HD Dac) with the same result, and two different speakers (Tannoy HPD and Tekton Lore S).

This occurs on other albums I have purchased on high res formats as well, but I cannot make the comparison to the burn version from the CDs.

The etched highs I guess I can understand come from having an uncompressed full range file format that perhaps would sound better on a more expensive system. But the short but annoying episodes of the 'shouts' I cannot explain.

Any similar experiences and/or thoughts on how to remedy? 

My system is: Macbook Pro - Audirvanna - Halide DAC HD - Hegel H400 - vintage Tannoy HPD speakers.

Thank you  
128x128skoczylas

Showing 1 response by ejr1953

ejr1953
906 posts
 
OK, I don't mean to stir up trouble, but some people don't believe that music should be distributed in resolutions greater than a CD qualtiy (44.1k/16 bit).  Here's an interesting article to review:

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

Having said that, from what I understand the upper end of the possible frequency response which a DAC can derive from a digital file is half of the sampling rate, so a 192k file can contain content at 96kHz.

Though we humans can't hear above about 20kHz, the equipment you are running might be encountering content above 20kHz and what might sound as harshness is actually intermodulation distortion from your equipment attempting to reproduce this high frequency content.

I agree with mapman, maybe a different DAC would be in order.  I understand that DACs have "filtering" built into their design, maybe one which does this "filtering" better might be more pleasant to use.
More to discover