 The consumer electronics industry has, like many speciality industries, peculiar demands and behaviours where rationale makes place for emotion. The question is, where does rationale moors into emotion? A few years ago, on a high-end show, I spoke to a man that confessed his guilty pleasure. He loved watching the large blue power meters on his advanced acoustic power amplifier. These meters made him decide to buy that amp. Why an idiot would you say? Actually, I wouldn't. He was in touch with his desires, but a good sounding amp that, as a bonus, offered him a nice viewing experience. I consider that a rational control over irrational desires. Manufacturers of audio gear have learned that the looks of gear might be just as important or even more important than the sound. The looks tell the buyer how to weigh the product. A Raspberry Pi with headboard in an acrylic housing says, I'm cleverer than most for I get great sound for little money. On the other side of the spectrum, a massive shiny machined aluminium housing for a CD player says, I'm very well built, so I sound very good, and that's why I'm not cheap. Tube amplifiers nowadays have lats in the tube sockets to make sure the tubes show sufficient light to confirm it's a tube amp. And so on. It's not only the looks, there also is the feels. A flimsy volume control degrades the user experience, even if it has conductive plastic resistor tracks. While a solid feeling, clicking volume control gives confidence, even if it has a poor carbon resistor track. So manufacturers spend a lot of money on giving a product the right look and feel and have it promoted accordingly. Depending on the product there can be a lot of money being involved and that is of course calculated into the selling price. Don't blame the manufacturer for that. He is only anticipating on our behaviour. Every industry gets the geeks it deserve. So it's our fault now. Yes, not that we can help it. It's just how we function. It has made traditional mid-class brands very weak, leaving us mainly boutique brands and mass market brands. The boutique market needs a completely different approach than the mass market. The boutique market communicates user experience more while the mass market, at least in the audio realm, tries to convince you of the quality of their products by numbers. Like it has the PCM1234 DAC chip you also find in equipment costing a 10 fold. It does 384 kHz in 32 bits. It delivers 2 x 200 watts in 8 ohms and so on. I have frequently explained that using a given DAC chip does not guarantee a given sound quality, like mounting wider tires under a Kia Picanto does not make it a gold GTI. Nothing wrong with a Kia Picanto by the way, it's just not a golf GTI and it can't be for the money. Like 384 kHz capability doesn't make a cheap DAC sound as good as a better, more expensive DAC. So what to think of music files at a higher sampling frequency? The choice of titles in high definition music is very limited. There is some choice at 88.496 kHz and even lower choice at 176.4192 kHz. Even higher sampling rates are available but only as downloads from webshops like nativdsd.com where many labels offer their albums. But it is mainly classical, some folk, some blues and some world music and although I personally love these genres, they represent only a small portion of the music market. Music that hit the charts is normally enjoyed in MP3 or perhaps in CD quality, while only a limited number of albums come available in 96 kHz in streaming services like Kuboos and Tidal, the latter only in MQA formats and in download stores where you can choose from stereo or multichannel in both HDPCM and DSD. And you do need hardware that is capable of playing these files properly. Also in the hardware limitations can be found. When we compare 44.1 kHz 16 bit files to 352.8 kHz 24 bit files, we see a bitrate during playback that is 12 times as high. 384.24 is even 13.1 times higher. I always thought that these higher bitrates would not cause any problem for asynchronous USB for that can handle far higher bitrates. But the men who developed asynchronous USB, Gordon Rankin, made clear in several interviews with colleagues of mine that his USB protocol for audio does not guarantee ever free data transport and that the number of errors increase with the bitrate. He also stated that using his protocol means that errors are going to be interpolated in the DAC and thus not recent or error corrected. And that in his experience Windows computers overuse the generate 12% more hard errors in digital audio bit streams than Apple computers. Furthermore he advises to avoid using a USB drive storing your music files on the same USB channel as the DAC is. You rather use a drive on eSATA, Thunderbolt or Firewire or make sure your computer has two USB channels and connect it to the channel not used for the DAC. Nor should you place music files on the same drive as your operating system is on, which means the OS uses quite some bandwidth for administrative and control tasks. That might obstruct music streaming a bit, diminishing the sound quality. What can I say, Rankin has the equipment to measure it, he has developed a protocol and has implemented it for several manufacturers. Still manufacturers have conflicting opinions. Orelik, the highly respected manufacturer of streamers and DACs, advises you to use SSDs for music storage while Melco, well respected manufacturer of music servers and sister company of network specialist Buffalo Inc. clearly states that normal SSDs are more noisy than spinning hard disks and you better use these. If you really want to use SSDs you should use special low noise types. What we do know is that more bandwidth due to higher sampling rates will at least frequently generate more noise. Firstly, tone down the natural desire for higher figures and use rationale. A 99 euro DAC can't have a very good clock oscillator for that doesn't fit the budget. These oscillators vary in wholesale price from a few dollars for the poor ones to over 50 dollars for the best ones and it's clear that the latter is not fitted. The same goes for speed-event USB receiver chips, the resistors, the capacitors and the housing. These DACs often are no more than a simple design based on the application note of the DAC chip manufacturer. They work properly but sound ways don't expect more than there is to expect from a 99 euro DAC. By the way, if such a DAC pleases you, please enjoy it, just don't say it's the best DAC in the world. Playing high resolution files over it might sound somewhat better than the CD quality files, mainly because the reconstruction filter has to work less hard. But it might also sound less because of all the jitter that occurs due to the components limitations. I would not take claims of 384 kHz capability seriously. Sure, it will play 384 kHz files, but does it bring better sound quality? From a few hundred euros onward I would expect to have benefit from high sampling rate for then the components can be of decent quality. The circuits will be better so it's fair to expect lower jitter. Then the advantage of milder reconstruction filters for the high res files pays off. This is also where MQA brings clear benefits, having lower bit weights and better reconstruction filters. Funny enough, DACs costing a few thousand euros benefit less from high res and MQA for components cost, circuit design time and circuit board design time can be higher. Good designs will have less problems reading in data from the digital source, might have better, sometimes proprietary reconstruction filters and have far better power supply. In general having better specifications does not guarantee better sound quality. Marketers know we humans like guarantees and therefore like you to think that better specifications lead to better products. Then engineers are summoned to, for instance, further lower figures by overall feedback loops in amps. And that works like a charm as long as you don't judge the sound quality. But you can only really judge that when you have bought the product. Also do realize that low priced products are low priced because they are not worth more money. When in the 60s Japanese cars came to Europe they didn't drive as well as European cars but they came standard with a stereo radio while it was optional on European brands. By the time Japanese cars were as good as European cars, they were priced equally. The same thing happened with South Korean cars and will happen with Chinese cars. This also goes for electronics you now can get cheaply from China. Although there is one clear difference. Cars are sold by local dealers while cheap electronics is sold in webshops in Asia. Now don't get me wrong, the better ones will deliver what you have ordered. But what to do if a 200 euro product gets defective? Sennigbet to China with insurance would cost 62 euros in my country. Buying more expensive equipment is less of a problem. The Yulong D810 I have reviewed performs up to western standards and is also available through channels on your Kent continent. In Europe for instance through audiophonics.com or France. And spending 60 euros on shipping for a 1000 euro product is less of a problem of course. Playback of high resolution files is easily done. Making them sound better does require more than a very cheap DAC. You at least have to spend a few hundred euros on the DAC and a bit more on the rest of your stereo. Don't get blinded by the light. 384 kHz is very limited as far as software choice is concerned. There is a limited number of 96 and 192 kHz albums available, also from artists that hit the charts but often you pay a premium price. Buy one or two or take a short subscription to a high-res streaming service and compare to see if you hear a difference and if that difference is positive. If not, there are two ways to go. You simply stay at CD quality and enjoy the music, or you upgrade your stereo and then start using high-res music. And with that bombshell we got to the end of this video. I'd love to see you back next Friday at 5pm central European time in a new video. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and thus trustworthy. If you would like to support my work, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.