Devialet and MQA

[David A]

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@bernardl re your first point, mindful of the recent test that indicated that in blind test conditions, nobody can reliably tell the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96, I would tend not to worry too much about Devialet supporting 24/382. Re your second point, yes, agreed!

I don't think that we can reliably tell the difference between 16/44.1 and higher resolutions but I do think we can reliably tell the difference between two different masterings when one is of higher quality than the other and higher resolution source material is sometimes/often better mastered than the CD resolution release.

But that's irrelevant to the question of whether there could be an advantage to 24/384 input when compared to the current 24/192 input capability we have.

If our source material is of lower resolution to 24/192 we currently have a choice between upsampling to 24/192 prior to sending it to the Devialet or sending it at native resolution and letting the Devialet do the upsampling. Which is better is going to depend on whether you've got an external device which can do the upsampling better the Devialet so some of us may be better off doing it elsewhere in our signal paths and some of us may be better letting our Devialets do it. That isn't going to change if the Devialet became capable of accepting 24/384 input. The issue is still going to be can we get results we prefer doing the upsampling elsewhere in the signal path or letting the Devialet do it.

The situation changes if we have some 24/384 native content. Currently we have to downsample that to 24/192 oer lower before sending it to the Devialet where it gets upsampled to 40/384. If the Devialet accepted 24/384 input we could avoid a lossy downsampling step, send the native 24/384 to the Devialet and just have it upsample that to 40/384. Would that deliver a sound improvement? I have no idea but in principle its best to avoid any lossy downsampling process if at all possible.

Put all that together and I'd see having 24/384 input capability as being beneficial to anyone with native 24/384 content or with the capability of doing a better upsampling job external to the Devialet. That's probably a small group of people but if Devialet chose to offer amps with 24/384 input capability I wouldn't knock it. I doubt anyone takes full advantage of every feature and capability the Expert Pro range currently offers and any new feature or capability that Devialet add in the future isn't going to benefit every Devialet owner so the fact that 24/384 input capability won't be of benefit to everyone isn't an issue provided it is of benefit to some, just as every other feature and capability is only of benefit to some owners.