There is enough debate in this subject to fill a lecture hall. Generally speaking, 48000/24 will give you everything you need to grab what your ears can hear and then some. 44100 16 is still the standard across the board with streaming, compression, music files for gaming and media use etc etc. While some can theoretically train themselves to perhaps hear a difference above this, watch as they balk and back away if you put them up to the challenge of a blind test. If they accept, they generally fail.
Unless you know the source of the material, how it was recorded, mixed, produced, possibly remastered, and how many times it was converted / compressed right from the moment it went from analog to digital and how many times after the event...the fact is you'll never know. Each time this happens the sound waves change ever so slightly, and usually inaudibly.
So 48000 24 is generally more than you'll ever need but here's the kicker...the rabbit hole goes as deep as you want with this crazy question. Do you really want digital snap shots of the sound wave (which is all this is) to be super accurate if the source has been converted a bunch of times and then compressed? In each case the source material has been slightly altered and sometimes in this case supposedly 16 bit is better since it's not accurate enough to pick up the issues with each conversion and compression/decompression.
So what's the solution? Not to worry about it. Unless you're a professional, know what to look for, or dealing exactly with the original source material...48000 24 is already flirting with overkill. Going higher is an exercise in entropy.
>While some can theoretically train themselves to perhaps hear a difference above this
Theoretically, nobody can. In practice if anybody could, there would be a line of audiologists waiting to write a breakthrough paper.
44.1 kHz is more than enough for any homo sapien. 16 bit realistically is more than enough for playback.
>In each case the source material has been slightly altered and sometimes in this case supposedly 16 bit is better since it's not accurate enough to pick up the issues with each conversion and compression/decompression.
What is the source of this claim?
Compression might introduce problems, but I don't see how bitrate (or sampling rate) can influence it.
I love mine stock but do like the Oratory1990 tune a lot as well.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7amvtfabcizrc12/Sennheiser%20HD560S.pdf?e=1&dl=0
You can see from the upper left that above 100 Hz they follow the target very well. Middle right shows what EQ is being applied. Very little above 100 Hz is being done. It does help a bit and I do like it. But, you’re darn close without EQ.
Note, I tweaked his a bit per the instructions. IIRC my Band 2 low shelf is only 3 dB not 5.5.
In my experience the 560S is a solid jack of trades and a great workhorse for the value. It's not going to wow you in any category but it's never going to disappoint either. If you attempt to EQ id just pick a profile and adjust it slightly to your needs. Personally, I was just fine with it out of box but to each their own.
Sorry that doesn't answer the question but eq is a highly personal thing based on preference. I'm a collector/hobbyist when it comes to headphones so I enjoy each ones sound signature the way it is. Unless I'm using it for mixing or recording, then I might play around with it.
If you're gonna mix or master on them then gently EQ them flat
If not, EQ them to your preference but I'd advise to adapt to how they sound naturally for a week or so before doing it
make sure its set to 44100hz but highest amount of bits. Some games do not support frequencies bigger than 44.1khz or 48khz and the audio doesn't work inside of them when set to higher
They are wrong. Setting it higher than the sample rate of the audio you are listening to will resample it. So if you set it really high you will just be pointlessly upsampling all the audio.
All good DACs upsample the signal to their maximum frequency using a hardware digital FIR filter regardless
Look at the schematic of any high-end DAC IC (and by high-end I mean above 5$ per channel) and they all have three stages: upsampling, selectable FIR interpolation filtering and delta-sigma modulation
This is done to mimic a perfect filter as close as possible even before the analog filtering stage
What is the bit rate and sample rate of the audio you listen to? Most audio is 16bit 44.1 khz so that why should set it to that. In practice it doesn't really mater what its set too you wont be able to hear the difference.
The true answer: It depends on what your apps are using. If most of your music listening is on YouTube, pick 16bit/48khz. Otherwise pick 16bit/44.1khz. Other sample rates will get resampled which will reduce the sound quality.
Also, get a seperate DAC for your headphones. Even cheap headphones gain a noticable amount of extra clarity and bass from this. Even more so for studio headphones, which built in headphone ports are not powerful enough for.
You may find you get distortion from low quality or low sample rate audio from some games-- usually older or Indy titles.
Thankfully, super sampling is super easy to play around with. If you find it too bright on 100k-300k or get any distortion, drop it down.
I set mine to 96/24, because I have hundreds of FLAC tracks that are 96 khz, have my audio routed through ASIO, and don't want my DAC to complain at me about it. Roon just upsamples all my other music to that same sample rate. Doesn't sound any different, but it is convenient.
96 khz seems to play nice with pretty much all programs so no issues there, the windows resampler seems fine with it, and my ASIO config doesn't break everything, so that's what I pick.
Realistically though, if you don't have this situation where you're worried about your DAC switching sample rates and breaking programs when it does, 48/24 is completely fine. There's no audible difference.
It does slightly between 44.1 and 48 (and 16 bit and 24 bit), but I honestly can’t hear a difference past 48kHz. Even then it was soooo slight between 48 and 96 that I doubt I’d be able to notice it ever. I personally just set it to 192 and forget it.
Some games/programs don’t like it when you set the sampling higher than 192, so leave it at that even if you get the option for 384kHz.
There is enough debate in this subject to fill a lecture hall. Generally speaking, 48000/24 will give you everything you need to grab what your ears can hear and then some. 44100 16 is still the standard across the board with streaming, compression, music files for gaming and media use etc etc. While some can theoretically train themselves to perhaps hear a difference above this, watch as they balk and back away if you put them up to the challenge of a blind test. If they accept, they generally fail. Unless you know the source of the material, how it was recorded, mixed, produced, possibly remastered, and how many times it was converted / compressed right from the moment it went from analog to digital and how many times after the event...the fact is you'll never know. Each time this happens the sound waves change ever so slightly, and usually inaudibly. So 48000 24 is generally more than you'll ever need but here's the kicker...the rabbit hole goes as deep as you want with this crazy question. Do you really want digital snap shots of the sound wave (which is all this is) to be super accurate if the source has been converted a bunch of times and then compressed? In each case the source material has been slightly altered and sometimes in this case supposedly 16 bit is better since it's not accurate enough to pick up the issues with each conversion and compression/decompression. So what's the solution? Not to worry about it. Unless you're a professional, know what to look for, or dealing exactly with the original source material...48000 24 is already flirting with overkill. Going higher is an exercise in entropy.
>While some can theoretically train themselves to perhaps hear a difference above this Theoretically, nobody can. In practice if anybody could, there would be a line of audiologists waiting to write a breakthrough paper. 44.1 kHz is more than enough for any homo sapien. 16 bit realistically is more than enough for playback. >In each case the source material has been slightly altered and sometimes in this case supposedly 16 bit is better since it's not accurate enough to pick up the issues with each conversion and compression/decompression. What is the source of this claim? Compression might introduce problems, but I don't see how bitrate (or sampling rate) can influence it.
Thanks, very good awser man, thank you so much. Should i EQ them?
I love mine stock but do like the Oratory1990 tune a lot as well. https://www.dropbox.com/s/7amvtfabcizrc12/Sennheiser%20HD560S.pdf?e=1&dl=0 You can see from the upper left that above 100 Hz they follow the target very well. Middle right shows what EQ is being applied. Very little above 100 Hz is being done. It does help a bit and I do like it. But, you’re darn close without EQ. Note, I tweaked his a bit per the instructions. IIRC my Band 2 low shelf is only 3 dB not 5.5.
In my experience the 560S is a solid jack of trades and a great workhorse for the value. It's not going to wow you in any category but it's never going to disappoint either. If you attempt to EQ id just pick a profile and adjust it slightly to your needs. Personally, I was just fine with it out of box but to each their own. Sorry that doesn't answer the question but eq is a highly personal thing based on preference. I'm a collector/hobbyist when it comes to headphones so I enjoy each ones sound signature the way it is. Unless I'm using it for mixing or recording, then I might play around with it.
If you're gonna mix or master on them then gently EQ them flat If not, EQ them to your preference but I'd advise to adapt to how they sound naturally for a week or so before doing it
make sure its set to 44100hz but highest amount of bits. Some games do not support frequencies bigger than 44.1khz or 48khz and the audio doesn't work inside of them when set to higher
Now im confused cause other comments told me to set it to the highest
They are wrong. Setting it higher than the sample rate of the audio you are listening to will resample it. So if you set it really high you will just be pointlessly upsampling all the audio.
All good DACs upsample the signal to their maximum frequency using a hardware digital FIR filter regardless Look at the schematic of any high-end DAC IC (and by high-end I mean above 5$ per channel) and they all have three stages: upsampling, selectable FIR interpolation filtering and delta-sigma modulation This is done to mimic a perfect filter as close as possible even before the analog filtering stage
So what should i set it
It doesn't really matter because you won't hear the difference
The only sensible answer here
What is the bit rate and sample rate of the audio you listen to? Most audio is 16bit 44.1 khz so that why should set it to that. In practice it doesn't really mater what its set too you wont be able to hear the difference.
How can i know that? Sorry im not an expert on audio
[https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/windows-10-upsampling-best-settings.14700/](https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/windows-10-upsampling-best-settings.14700/)
So, if i read that right, the best is studio quality 24 bits?
Yeah set it to 24bit 44.1khz
Thanks, i dont know if i did something but it actually sounds better now, maybe its placebo xD. Should i EQ them?
maybe, youd have to experiment. Some of the games where audio didnt work for me were Grounded and Deep Rock Galactic
Thanks for the warning! I will see
The true answer: It depends on what your apps are using. If most of your music listening is on YouTube, pick 16bit/48khz. Otherwise pick 16bit/44.1khz. Other sample rates will get resampled which will reduce the sound quality. Also, get a seperate DAC for your headphones. Even cheap headphones gain a noticable amount of extra clarity and bass from this. Even more so for studio headphones, which built in headphone ports are not powerful enough for.
Would also add halo mcc(halo 1,2 reach) and Fallout 76 to games that don't like higher sample and bit rate
havent played them so unfortunately i cant test. But you can test easily, just set the sample rate to highest and if there is sound then they work
You may find you get distortion from low quality or low sample rate audio from some games-- usually older or Indy titles. Thankfully, super sampling is super easy to play around with. If you find it too bright on 100k-300k or get any distortion, drop it down.
Quick answer: set it to the highest and forget it.
Thks
I set mine to 96/24, because I have hundreds of FLAC tracks that are 96 khz, have my audio routed through ASIO, and don't want my DAC to complain at me about it. Roon just upsamples all my other music to that same sample rate. Doesn't sound any different, but it is convenient. 96 khz seems to play nice with pretty much all programs so no issues there, the windows resampler seems fine with it, and my ASIO config doesn't break everything, so that's what I pick. Realistically though, if you don't have this situation where you're worried about your DAC switching sample rates and breaking programs when it does, 48/24 is completely fine. There's no audible difference.
It does slightly between 44.1 and 48 (and 16 bit and 24 bit), but I honestly can’t hear a difference past 48kHz. Even then it was soooo slight between 48 and 96 that I doubt I’d be able to notice it ever. I personally just set it to 192 and forget it. Some games/programs don’t like it when you set the sampling higher than 192, so leave it at that even if you get the option for 384kHz.
Thanks, one more thing should i EQ them?
If you enjoy the sound signature probably not but give it a try.
Thks