Hi everyone,
I'm brand new to this forum - just registered.
I'm also a new owner of the PCM-M10 - it's an amazing piece of hardware.
I have a question that some might say is off-topic for this forum because it involves using the PCM-M10 for playback of files obtained from other sources rather than files recorded on the deck itself, but here goes...
There are a couple of sites out there from which one can download 96-Khz/24-bit FLAC files of mostly classical or jazz recordings.
I have converted some of these purchased recordings from FLAC to WAV (decompressing them, but leaving them at 96/24) using dbPoweramp software. Loading the WAVs to the PCM-M10, I then make use of its DAC for playback at 96/24 via the Line Out to feed a nice external headphone amp and headphones. The whole idea, here, is to achieve high quaility portable audio.
Obviously, there's a whole lot more choice available in 44.1-kHz/16-bit CD format, which leads to my question (to anyone who cares to answer):
In your opinion, would it be best, in terms of sound quality, to just convert 44.1/16 content to WAV for playback on the PCM-M10, without upsampling or increasing the bit depth (to 96/16 or 96/24, for example)?
I'm eager to learn so feel free to correct me if I say something ignorant here, but at the moment, I believe that a bit depth of 24-bit offers nothing over 16-bit in terms of improved sound quality on playback, because the dynamic range supported by 16-bit is more than sufficient for both our ears and our audio hardware. (I know, however, that even 32-bit can be of great benefit when recording.)
My question is more to the subject of sampling frequency - specifically, whether or not there's any benefit to be enjoyed (on playback), having upsampled a 44.1-kHz file to 88.2- or 96-kHz.
Which leads to another question: The specs for the PCM-M10 make no mention (that I've seen) of support for 88.2 kHz sampling. Does anyone know if it can play an 88.2 kHz WAV, even though it can't record at that frequency? If so, does anyone believe that upsampling from 44.1-kHz to 88.2 kHz would provide superior results on playback vs. upsampling from 44.1 to 96?
Lastly, to save space on my microSDHC cards, I'm thinking of using dbPoweramp to reduce the bit depth of the 96/24 content purchased online to 96/16 (without changing the sampling frequency). Does anyone think, again in terms of sound quality on playback, that I'd be better off leaving those files alone (as 96/24 WAVs)? Not so much to preserve the 24-bit dynamics, which I contend cannot be appreciated, but rather to simply avoid a possible loss in playback quality caused by "over-processing" the files - adding one more step to the workflow.
Thank you everyone, in advance. I'm looking forward to your responses.
Mike