upsampling?

Last summer, we had long, and often heated, threads about the difference)s) between "upsampling" and the more conventional term for increasing the digital sample rate, ie "over sampling", and it seems they are essentially the same thing. So any good DAC or CD player whether touting upsampling or not should sound good. Levinson DACs sample at a rate of about 352 KHZ, and they they call it 8X oversampling. When I asked Madrigal about it, they said "do you want us to lower our standards to 192 KHZ?". If you don't believe this, check with Resolution Audion, Muse Electronics, Theta Digital, Madrigal Audio and other digital manufacturers. Even JA of Stereophile finally admitted that they are essentially the same. As to sound quality differences, it's just a matter of the way the technology is implemented. And yes, at the cost, dCS gear should be excellent. I personally use the ML 360S and it also is excellent. I Don't really want to stir up a heated debate on this again, so if you want, just look up threads under upsampling. Cheers. Craig.

Garfish, Agreed - Pick your semantics upsampling or oversampling. Hoe I didn't come off as upsampling was the only way to go. As far as dCS and Levinson is concerned, they are both great gear. Cheers - Dan

I think that it is real funny that because dCS was the first to quote 24/192 most digital manufactures use that as the number to beat. Garfish says that Levinson is quoting 352, there are others quoting 384 and 768. All these high numbers are strictly fuzzy math. Here’s how they get to it…44K multiplied by 8 times oversampling and you get 352. Then there is 96K multiplied by 4 times oversampling and you get 384. Then there is 96K multiplied by 8 times oversampling and you get 768. This may all sound logical until you do the apples to apples comparison. None of the above companies quoting these high numbers can accept a signal above 96K. dCS accepts a 192 signal and for an apples to apples comparison then oversamples 64 times. So lets look at the math. 192 multiplied by 64 times oversampling and you get 12,288. So if you are going to buy into the marketing hype what would you rather have: 24/352, 24/384, 24/768, or 24/12288?

The bottom line is how each dac sounds, not the fuzzy math. Don’t buy into the marketing and mathematical figures, go out, listen for yourself, and let your ears be the judge.

Yes, all CD's sound better through the Elgar and Purcell combo, some more than others. The difference clearly is in the amount of information which comes through, and to me is most apparent in the way note-to-note flow of strings, and especially massed strings, is reproduced. As to what Levinson says, that's utter hogwash. The Levinson 360S, which I was previously using, sounded substantially better when I added the Purcell at 24/96, and when I finally substituted the Elgar for the 360S, it was another major improvement at 24/192. But there is another factor as well--the Elgar and Purcell are neutral in a way the 360S is not. When you change digital and analogue cables (between the DAC and preamp), there is a difference, but there is still remaining what I suppose might be termed the "Levinson sound". I'm not knocking it--I'm still using, and like, the Levinson 37 transport. But when you change cables with the Elgar and Purcell, the change is much more dramatic; you hear much greater differences, and you have to be very careful not to attribute cable sound to dCS. Whatever dCS does, it simply is not what Levinson is doing. I can't and won't generalize about other companies.

I re-read my last comment, and decided it wasn't fair. For all I know, Levinson is 100% correct as to the technology. But what I can state is there was a substantial improvement when I substituted the Purcell (for the Genesis Digital Lens) between the Levinson 37 and 360S; that the 360S sounded fabulous at 24/96 with the Purcell; but that the Elgar sounded even better, at 24/192. I am attributing the differences to upconversion because I have nothing else to go on, but I suppose it could be something else I don't understand just as well. Same with neutrality: what is clear is that cable differences seem more pronounced with the dCS components, which seems to me to be a result of grater neutrality, but could be something I am not factoring in too.