24/88.2 Playback using RME 9632 + Benchmark DAC1

I just downloaded a 24/88.2 "master quality" track from www.linnrecords.com and the playback was like an "exam" of what I know so far. The experience was also a test of PC hardware, software, configuration, and the DAC.

First of all the song track I downloaded was a WMA file. Playback it via foobar showed 2425kbps/44.1KHz, i.e. it went beyond the foobar WMA decoder limitation. I needed 88.2KHz.

I attempted to convert it using Samplitude and it gave 16bit/88KHz wave file instead. It was the first time I paid US$5.8 for downloading a song and I was determined to get a true 24bit/88.2Khz wave file. So I searched through web and found our Slim Devices forum friends already tried and they used authentic MS decoder called "wmal2pcm.exe" to convert the file to wave file, so I downloaded the program and converted the music track to true native 24bit/88.2KHz. Cool!

So for the playback. First I tried to play the 24/88 wav file with Samplitude. Unfortunately Samplitude could not even open a 24bit/88.2Khz wave file. So I used foobar to playback the track. I set SRC to 88.2 to ensure foobar could playback both 24/88.2 and 16/44.1 tracks smoothly. The P42.8 CPU utilization jumped up to 36% but overall PC performance was still ok.

And the result: Very smooth sound that I never heard of before. Violin playback from R1SC was similar to Sonus Faber that I remember long time ago. No fatigue and I could playback the same track again and again. I am glad RME9632 and Benchmark lived up to their reputation and delivers not just 16/44, but 24/88.2 at exceptional quality. I look forward to the ultimate test: to playback a 24/192 track.