The typical DAC chip of a typical mid-fi CD player does not actually out-put a 16 bit word length. Even the good DACs often only achieve 14 bit words at best-- this is with a 16 bit DAC chip. But when 20 to 24 bit chips are used, the DAC can more closely approach or actually achieve true 16 bit words, and thus produce more "information" or detail from a 16 bit encoded CD.
The "word" length in bits has nothing to do with the sampling rate. Even a typical inexpensive CD player uses 8X oversampling, which yields an actual sample rate of 352.8 KHZ. Over-sampling and up-sampling are essentially the same thing, but recently the term "up-sampling" has become a buzzword to help sell allegedly better CD players.
"Better" CD players are better (and more expensive) because of the use of the highest quality parts, ie DAC chip sets and other parts, and excellent engineering, design, and implementation. Levinson also uses 8X oversampling, but uses the best quality parts and implementation. I am not an expert in this but took a big interest in it (and did a lot of research) prior to purchase of the expensive Levinson 360S DAC. The 360S is an absolutely great DA Converter, but there are others. Cheers. Craig
The "word" length in bits has nothing to do with the sampling rate. Even a typical inexpensive CD player uses 8X oversampling, which yields an actual sample rate of 352.8 KHZ. Over-sampling and up-sampling are essentially the same thing, but recently the term "up-sampling" has become a buzzword to help sell allegedly better CD players.
"Better" CD players are better (and more expensive) because of the use of the highest quality parts, ie DAC chip sets and other parts, and excellent engineering, design, and implementation. Levinson also uses 8X oversampling, but uses the best quality parts and implementation. I am not an expert in this but took a big interest in it (and did a lot of research) prior to purchase of the expensive Levinson 360S DAC. The 360S is an absolutely great DA Converter, but there are others. Cheers. Craig