Yes, he's definitely right in that higher frequencies create problems that need to be dealt with.HansW wrote:A potential explanation may be one that I heard Scott Berry of CAD (Computor Audio Design) provide a couple of weeks ago. He finds high frequency noise to be the main obstacle in trying to get goid sound from digital sources. He therefore does everything he can to reduce this in his dac designs including no oversampling, no dsd and no switched mode power supplies. If he is right, higher sampling frequencies create problems that need to be dealt with if the benefits are to exceed the liabilities.lejonklou wrote:Huh! I didn't quite expect that. So high resolution is fine but high sampling rates are not? I'd like to know whether he's reached those preferences on specific equipment or whether he finds it reproducible anywhere.matthias wrote:AFAIK, his preferred format is 24bit/44.1kHz in contrast to 24/96.
There are several other companies that have gone down this non-oversampling route, such as Metrum, Vertex, Audio Note etc, to avhieve a more 'analog' sound.
Some seem to blame high frequencies for everything that is bad. I suspect one reason for this is that they are used to simply calculate their low frequency designs, which then end up working pretty much as expected. When they add high frequencies, such as when using Switched Mode Power Supplies, a lot of trial and error is needed to obtain good results. And I mean A LOT. The circuit won't behave as you calculated and it won't sound as you expected. You need to make countless practical tests to hear what happens and figure out how it reacts. It's a whole other beast to wrestle with.
But I didn't really expect these "high frequency are problematic" arguments to appear in the choice between for instance 44.1 and 96 kHz sampling frequencies in the recording part of the chain. I thought the professional equipment they used were well adapted to the higher sampling rates. Perhaps even optimised for the highest rates. Perhaps they're not? If they are not, the problem starts there and it won't really matter what sampling rate our DAC's are optimised for. The music file is already best in a certain (perhaps low) sampling rate.