I performed an intesting test yesterday.
I used my stereo as reference, and was able to perform true A-B-A testing with my 24bit 96khz master from a show I taped the other day, and the downsampled, dithered 16/44 CDs I burnt from this 24bit master .wav file.
My stereos front end consists of a Musical Fidelity CD-PRE24 , which has plenty of digital I/O, plus a built in transport. It automaticly upsamples redbook CDs to 24/96 before analog conversion...and I figured this would be interesting to see if it is actualy worth the trouble to record at high resolution when my stereo does such a fine job making 16bit audio sound so nice (and 24bit-like).
I hooked up my laptop > firewire > Edirol FA-101 toslink output to my MF cd-pre24 and played the 16bit version (resampled in wavelab and dithered via the apogee plug-in) out of the transport and made sure that they were matched up timing wise so that I could switch between sources via the remote from my listening position.
long story short...
the upsampled redbook source sounded very nice.....but the raw 24/96 files sounded better. If that was 100%, than the redbook version through the upsampling DAC was 80%. Noticible, but not "in your face" different. The 24bit file was clearer sounding, more precise, better detail in the articulation of each instrument. Bass notes were deeper, tighter and I could hear the attack "pluck" of the musicians bass strings vs. the note that was just "there" w/the 16bit file. It was strange, ...somewhat like I could hear the origins of the individual notes in the raw 24bit files vs. the appearance of the notes as they seem to just materialize out of the redbook source. The 24bit files sounded, in a word..cleaner and more natural.
so is it worth it?
hmmmmm....it makes me think that with the right DAC, 16bit will hold its own against 24bit any day of the week. My MF box is pretty nice sounding, but its not the end all, be all in redbook playack...plus, it also reclocks all digital input through its own circuitry (which I dont believe would produce any audible artifacts).
I'll have to take both sources over to Carls house to see if we can hear a bigger difference in his system (Benchmark DAC-1).
Unfortunately, my ears were quickly spoiled w/the 24bit testing at my house....and now I need to keep recording at this resolution in order to really connect w/the music in playback. that 20% difference between the sources became more apparent as the listening went on into the evening. It would have been nice to come down to the realization that my upsampling DAC could cut the mustard. I would be back on the Nomad recorder so fast.......but I guess its back to the drawing board w/the troublesome world of laptop recording.
Gear used in the testing:
source:
- raw 24bit 96khz master .wav fles
- 16bit / 44.1khz redbook CD (dithered with the apogee plugin in wavlab) and resampled (also w/wavlab)
front ends:
24bit- toshiba 3480ct running Wavelab 4.0 for playback
firewire link from laptop to Edirol FA-101. Toslink output from here...
16bit - Musicl Fidelity CD-PRE transport
Musical Fidelity CD-PRE24
McCormack DNA-1 power drive (185wpc)
Von Schweikert VR4 gen I loudspeakers
Gregg Straley custom speaker cable and single IC.