Newbie question re: sound card and mixer configuration

[wholepunch]

Hi there,

Im hoping someone more experienced with digital music setups can kindly help me out.

I’m very new to this so you’ll appreciate that my equipment won’t win any prizes, but I’ve been fairly careful selecting components, within budget of course.

I have a set of M-Audio AV40 active monitor speakers connected to the output of my Behringer Xenyx Q802USB mixer, into which I have my PC connected as a source via the Behringer USB interface (the mixer essentially appears as a sound card) and a Pro-Ject Elemental II turntable via a phono line-in.

I’m happy with how things sound, and have been buying, playing and recording new vinyl quite happily.

I also have a large collection of digital music, which I have recently started slowly replacing with high-quality downloads from hdtracks.co.uk.

My question is:

I know that the Behringer USB interface has a sample rate of 48Khz, and some of my new tracks are sampled at 192Khz. I know all of the well-trodden arguments about the validity of tracks of this quality, and whether humans can actually detect the difference etc etc, but it we can just take it as read that I want to play them at 192Khz, I think it’ll be easier J

So, 192Khz into 48Khz doesn’t go, so I’m not able to hear the unmolested higher quality tracks through my speakers when connected through my mixer desk, as is my understanding.

If, however, I buy a high quality PC sound card which supports 192Khz sampling, then bypass the Behringer CODEC by plugging the line-out of this soundcard to a line-in on the Behringer (therefore eliminating the Behringer USB interface entirely), will I pass the higher bitrate through to the main out and therefore my speakers?

I think I’ve probably found the most convoluted way possible to ask this question – so, in summary, if I don’t use the Behringer USB interface and just use it’s Phono line-in and main out to my speakers, will it play my HD music?

Many thanks

Ade

 

[cheeseboy]

yes 🙂

Hope that helps.

 

[fr0g]

I know you don't want to hear this, but downsampled will sound identical.

I ran a series of tests recently and downsampled 24/96 and above, down to 16/44.1 and made a "null test file", ie the result of the difference....minutes of complete silence...closely examined in Audacity audio software found differences...all way outside the range of human hearing or way way below the noise floor.

So unless you can hear a dog whistle and hear the neighbours on the other side of the street stirring their coffee, the 192 Khz downloads are pointless...unless of course you find they contain better masters...in which case they will be equally better downsampled to 48 KHz...

Lost cause I'm afraid.

 

[wholepunch]

Thank you cheeseboy - nice and simple answer which at least means I understand how the plumbing works now 🙂

Thanks too to fr0g - It's not that I'm not open to argument on the sample rate issue - I really don't know myself as I'm new to this game and have never experienced 192Khz (as fas as I know). What I would say is that there does appear to be quite a lot of overblown nonsense talked about the differences between "HD" and CD quality music, and where there's hyperbole, there's usually a marketing campaign..

However - as I said, I won't know if it makes any difference to me personally (albeit that I may just be experiencing a kind of audio placebo effect, which is fine if I still think it sounds better), until I try it. I'll report back 🙂

One really useful thing has come out of both of your answers though - I did a lot of research on soundcards and my mixer desk and I reckon that regardless of sample rates I would get a much better sound by upgrading both of them (nothing fancy, just a step up), so for the impetus to do that, many thanks.

Appreciate it guys.

 

[SteveR750]

Your media player also needs to be able to stream at the higher resolution, some will simply push the data through the windows k mixer and downsample it to whatever the default rate is

 

[wholepunch]

Thanks Steve

I'm using J River as my player, talking to my (current) Creative Xi-Fi SBX 5.1 pro (which supports 96/24) and from there through the Behringer Xenyx Q802USB mixer to my M-Audio AV40 active monitors. Does this get me around the Windows mixer / itunes restrictions?

 

[wholepunch]

One last thing, then I'll leave you all alone for at least 10 minutes...

In my setup (see above), or, in fact, in any setup using a mixer, is it "better" or at least, best practice for some reason, to increase the volume of what you're playing back at source, the mixer channel, main out, or, in my case, at the speakers themselves?

To clairfy, assume I'm playing a track on my PC using Jriver. If I want to turn the volume up I can either:

a) increase my PC volume, making the source louder

b) increase the level on the Behringer mixer channel which relates to where my PC sound card enters the desk via stereo Line in

c) increase the Main Mix level on my mixer

d) increase the volume using the knob on the front of my powered M-Audio AV 40 active speakers

Is there an accepeted way to control volume which results in greater or lesses quality, for example?

Forgive me, another noob question I realise.

Thanks

 

[wholepunch]

Found this - with an excellent answer and a really interesting PDF embedded in the middle. http://superuser.com/questions/492281/from-a-quality-perspective-what-is-better-turning-volume-up-in-the-software-i

Interested to see if there are any views on this.

 

[SteveR750]

Found this - with an excellent answer and a really interesting PDF embedded in the middle. http://superuser.com/questions/492281/from-a-quality-perspective-what-is...

Interested to see if there are any views on this.

It is, and it's why J River, Foobar etc all do the DSP in a 64 bit environment.

This site is extremely useful

http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/Bit1624.htm