Apple lossless -vs-24/96

You would need to re-rip the CDs using something like dbPowerAmp. But I fail to see how taking a 16-bit, 44.1kHz file and then padding it to produce a 24-bit, 96kHz version would provide any benefit at all.

Your time and effort would probably be much better spent seeking out and purchasing files that are already encoded at 24 bits and 96 kHz. And your system would *surely* sound better no matter what source material you use if you were to spend your time and money improving the speaker/room interface...

-RW-

Agree...for your new music going forward...try and buy 24/96 files vs 16/44...not all will be...I like to use HD Tracks....for the higher rez files...even 24/44 sounds better to me...

Would it be best to use J River Media 18 and buy some 24/96 tracks on hdtracks.com?

lads....yes. get JRiver 18 and buy a couple of 24/96 albums from HD Tracks...you will hear the difference.

Some upsamplers such as Wave Editor on Mac do a good job of upsampling. This can improve the playback sound quality of a 44.1 track on most DACs. Why? Because the digital filter in the DAC has less impact on the music data at 96 than at 44.1. The filter "knee" is much lower in frequency for 44.1 files.

If your DAC has selectable digital filters than you can get around this nad make 44.1 sound really good. This is what my DAC has.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio