Denon receiver says "176.4 KhZ"????

[Johnny Canuck]

I know I mentioned this on another thread, but it died before I got an answer.

CD's are 44.1kHz, why is it, when i use "double remaster" on my DVD player and set the digital audio output to 192kHz, i get this? Is this better? is this what they call upconversion? Why does a DVD player have the option of 48khz, up to 96Khz, and up to 192Kh?

Can somebody please explain all this upsampling, downsampling thing in plain english? Thanks.

 

[MDS]

The player is upsampling to 176.4 kHz. I guess the basic 'remaster' setting doubles the sample rate and 'double remaster' doubles it again.

I thought I explained all those sample rate settings on the other thread, but I can try again if my prior explanation didn't make sense.

 

[racquetman]

sampling output of DVD player

The DVD player has the option for those sampling frequencies because it doesn't know what your receiver's DACs (digital to analog converters) can handle. If you are sending the signal digitally to your receiver via a coax or toslink connection, then you are asking the receiver to convert this digital signal to analog for amplification and output to your speakers. All receivers can handle a 48 khz signal (so 44.1 khz CD is no problem for the receiver's DACs). When DVD came along higher sampling frequencies became an option. Signals on a DVD can be up to 96 khz (pcm stereo). What if your receiver can't handle 96 khz? What you want to do is tell your dvd player the highest frequency the receiver can handle is 48 khz (the dvd player will now downmix (downsample) the signal to 48 khz so that the receiver can decode it). Then DVD-Audio came along. Now you can have a signal up to 192 khz stereo. If the player is allowed to pass this signal digitally, which most aren't except a few by a company's proprietary means, then the receiver must be able to handle this high frequency. Most of the time a DVD-audio's signal is converted to analog in the player which can handle all DVD-audio frequencies, and this is sent via the analog outputs to the receiver (the receiver no longer is doing the digital to analog conversion, so in this case it doesn't matter what sampling frequency the receiver can handle). Hopefully I have cleared up for you why those sampling options are in your DVD player.

Upsampling is actually a pretty complicated topic if you want a thorough explanation. I would be happy to recommend a couple good references if you really want to understand the subject. If you just want the short answer then I would say that, yes, upsampled music is usually considered to be better. However this can depend on the quality of the electronic parts doing the upsampling (or oversampling or re-sampling as I've heard it called). Try it both ways and see if you hear a difference. That is really all that matters anyways.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Thanks guys.
So keeping mt setting at "up to 192Khz" on my DVD player like I have is a bad thing? From what i read here, it's down sampling when it doesn't have to so keep it at 48kHz???

 

[racquetman]

I would set your DVD player to whatever your receiver is specified at. If you don't know, look in your owner's manual. That information is usually in the back where all the technical information is. Look for a field called sampling frequency. If you don't have the owner's manual, you can usually find this information online.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

There is nothing in my Denon 3805 manual that mentions sampling frequency. There is some brief discription of AL24 which if I read it correctly, allows sampling of DVD Audio discs upto 192khz. There is also something called "96/24" and DDSC Digital that supports 192KHz.

Can anybody with the Denon 3805 help me with this?

 

[racquetman]

Johnny,

You have a near top of the line receiver. The 3805 has Burr Brown DACs capable of 192 khz/24 bit conversion. Set your DVD player at 192 khz.

I couldn't find this information in the owner manual either. This should be stated in the specifications for easy reference. I have never cared for any of Denon's operation manuals. Too vague.

Check out the audioholics review for confirmation:

http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/Denon-AVR3805_review02.php