Just picked up an x1850 and wondering if anyone can shed any light on why some fx (reverb for example) does not work when the audio bit rate is set to 96khz?
Seems a shame to have trade out some fx in order to get the best sound quality 
Cheers.
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Are your source music tracks at 96k?
mostly - No, but I would have thought it would utilize upsampling?
It will but you donât really gain anything unless you music is at 96K. Iâd set your mixer sampling rate to the highest sample rate/bit depth of your music. You use music 100% of the time when Djing and should be using FX much less so. Should all the FX work on the highest sample rate of the mixer? YES but since they donât, Iâd use whatever gives you the most bang for your buck. You can create a thread for Denon to âfixâ it and Iâd probably vote for it but thereâs still some very basic things they need to fix first.
It sounded better to my ears but alas it could well be a placebo. Itâs never obvious when youâre dealing with that level of detail.
Regardless, I agree its not a top priority. It just seemed odd to me and curious as to the reasoning.
Iâd say, if itâs limiting the FX that you use, then pick a sampling rate that allows you to use them until Denon âfixes the glitchâ. 
The SC Prime players are doing all the track sample rate conversions currently and it seems to be a poor-quality real-time sample rate conversion and is unnecessary, with SPDIFs currently fixed at 96khz. Thereâs intermodulation distortion harmonics and also a bunch of ultrasonic garbage being generated⌠probably much of the reason for the Prime playersâ remaining sound quality issues. So, youâre not actually losing much by forcing the mixer at a lower sampling work rate, and you might actually roll off some of the ultrasonics by doing that. I personally just leave the mixer at 96khz, but I am not bothered by the missing effects. YMMV.
Hopefully InMusic will eventually let us select the player sample rate and enable/disable the SPDIFs. Youâd choose between 44.1/On, 48/On, 96/On (the current), and Auto/Off. With the On settings, tracks that are different than your chosen rate would be converted to that rate. Obviously if youâre using the SPDIFs thereâd be an incentive to simply set the players to the rate of most of your tracks and then set the mixer to that same rate. If youâre using the analog outs, thereâd be an incentive to choose Auto/Off to disable the SPDIFs and have the rates simply adapt since the DACs can handle a much wider range of rates than the SPDIFs can.
How can it be the players that are doing the conversion when the setting is on the mixer? If that were true how would it deal with a signal from another (non prime player) source?
Player reads the file with itâs sampling rate letâs say at 44000. Then up-samples that to 96000, then comes the DSP in the player for Your controls like pitchbend, loops, hot cues, reverse, scratch, etc⌠Then it goes to SPDIF outs on the player, or gets converted to analog and goes out on the analog outputs. Mixer picks up the signal from digital ins and just passes it thru to dsp if the sampling rate is set the same, or changes that again if it is set differently by you than what the player provides. Analog input on the mixer gets sampled with the setting You chose on the mixer.
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What he said. If youâve set the mixer to 96khz, since the players are currently stupidly fixed at that for everything, the mixer wonât do any additional SRC when fed that SPDIF input. The track has its own sample rate. You canât run a 44.1khz file in a 96khz audio domain without SRC, as it would be a wildly different speed when you play it back. I mean, technically thatâs part of what theyâre slightly doing with pitch up and pitch down when DJing, but thatâs a different matter. However, people have a misconception that SRC is some kid gloves process. It is most definitely not always harmless. Itâs probably the reason for the treble roll-off, IMD, and ultrasonic noise, for instance: crappy high-efficiency SRC.
So essentially, the reason the mixers 96khz sounds better is simply because in that mode the mixer isnât doing unnecessary conversion of a file that was already unnecessarily converted prior?
Wow⌠seems pretty dumb. Although knowing this, Iâm even more baffled why some fx wouldnât work in 96khz if its actually less processing for the mixer.
I think that the problem of missing fx could be because some effects are written to work only in lower sample rates. But I could be wrongâŚ
which would make no sense⌠if everything that we just discussed is accurate. Must be more to it
May or may not be a placebo effect. Could be worse. Maybe itâs better, but that would only be because the mixerâs own real-time SRC is adding its own artifacts that would be even worse than the ultrasonic garbage youâve just attenuated slightly. Going down like that in real-time is pretty brute and clunky, so thatâs another thing, but the Prime players doing two layers up at once with that much roll-off, IMD, and ultrasonic noise clearly is a whole other level of awful.
Of note: there have been tests with some supposedly high sample rate audio files where they can empirically show the preamps, amps, and tweeters performing WORSE downstream and zero additional real actual musical information being sent to a personâs ears, but the listeners still think it sounds better even though the system very objectively is performing worse. People think the distortion and noise is more information, when itâs not, especially when theyâre being told itâs HiRes.
So right now the Prime system may or may not objectively be performing better or worse with a lower sample rate on the mixer after being fed a 96khz SPDIF from the SC Prime players. Iâm not knocking interpolative upsampling, either. The X1700 does gorgeous upsampling, and there are some wonderful 96khz to 44.1khz post-production downsampling methods for Red Book CD master, too. However, for sure the SC Prime Playersâ output is not optimal, so itâs sort of a crap shoot as to what to do with it until we have a Rate/SPDIF-Enable/Disable option.
Could be as simple as a lack of DSP throughput at a given sample rate, particularly with how many per-channel effects the X18xx line has. Thereâs much more crammed onto them than competing brands. Obviously with a Preferences setting for player sample rate & enable/disable SPDIFs to choose between 44.1/On, 48/On, 96/On (the current), and Auto/Off, this would become moot. Most of us are just playing 44.1 files with the X18xx line mixers. Youâd set the player to 44.1/On, the mixer to 44.1, the sound would be vastly improved, and youâd have all the effects working.
seems logical. I assume there is a request for this?
Sort of. Let me check if thereâs a new version.
Edit: I guess I donât have an updated version of that. Iâll make one.
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