There have been a few comments from dCS about this topic within a few subject threads fairly recently ( although I can’t find them this afternoon for some reason). Still, so far I seem to be in a minority. Native 2xDSD is another matter altogether and I love the few examples that I own. Ultimately it produces a great deal of listening fatigue in me. I don’t want to be controversial being a dCS fanboy but that’s what I hear or something similar with every track upsampled. Switch off the upsampling ( 2xDSD in this case with DAC filter 5 for DSD) and return to 16/44.1 (using DAC filter 5 - the PCM asymmetric one) and I hear a solid and convincing Steinway Model D without any sonic contradictions. The left hand notes appear to be as if from a second piano pushed against the back of the first instead of extending smoothly off towards the right. I am hearing the same sound shifting slightly centre, left and right yet somehow being in all these positions at the same time. Then I realise I am hearing the audio equivalent of an optical illusion, you know the one where a silhouette of a vase turns into a face and vice versa. Right hand notes should be around the centre. The usual recorded perspective, as if heard from some feet away, piano placed side on from roughly the centre towards the right as the length of the instrument and lower strings extend that way. So, for those unfamiliar with the work, a solo piano. In this case the Beethoven bagatelles from the 1990s recording by Alfred Brendel. So I took a well recorded track with a clearly defined central image. I thought that I was alone in the world in hearing these (with all three upsamplers I have owned) until I read the preamble to the Leedh processing patent ( an earlier discussion here this year).Īs I now have a brand new Vivaldi upsampler (purchased for its networking board), unsurprisingly I wanted to check if my usual problems with upsampling had now been overcome. Unfortunately I am always aware of the spatial oddities it can produce.
I’m apparently not an advocate or fan of Upsampling per se.