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I see that Windows sets the default output format at 16-bit, 44100 Hz (CD Quality).
Most of my music is in this format, but most of my movies use a 16-bit at 48 KHz format (named DVD quality in the Sound panel). The Windows system sounds are 16-bit at 22050 Hz, which seem to fit nice and evenly into 44.1 KHz.
I can't tell the difference in testing between using DVD quality vs CD quality as the default format, but if I were able to which would sound better? Which makes more sense for me to use from a technical point of view?
Is it better to "upsample" 44.1 KHz audio to 48 KHz, or "downsample" 48 KHz audio to 44.1 KHz?
Also, I do have a handful of 24-bit, 96 KHz albums that I rarely listen to. Would it be terrible to just choose that as my default format?
Just to be clear, I am not talking about converting files, I'm talking about what happens when a given sound is played on the fly using the default format set in Windows:
Incidentally, using anything above DVD quality makes iTunes 11 stutter when playing a large number of tracks in my collection. – Louis – 2014-06-30T08:45:43.837