24/96 upsampling vs. 24/192 upsampling vs. no upsampling?

In short, a CD encoded in 16/44 has no information beyond those bits. Interpolation is not finding something that's there; it's guessing at the existence of something and adding it.
24/96 encoding on the other hand is a real advance, and of course a 24/96 dac is necessary to fully decode these recordings. However, other factors in a dac design may not allow all those bits to come through as musical information: if the dac is not well designed, noise, for example from the power supply, or jitter, will nullify the advance represented by 24/96.
That is partially why a well-designed 20-bit CD player w/a quiet and dynamic dac and output stage will probably beat a cheap nasty DVD player with a 24/96 dac.

I think that most people would agree that the designer's implementaion of the technology is more important than the technology. Many people rave about some 24/96 or 24/192 designs, but some rave about the non-upsampling designs of Audio Note or Sakura.

It's probably best to listen to as many as possible in your price range. Most will sound different from each other...even the units that upsample to 24/96. It really comes down to the design and your personal preference.

Thanks for keeping the informative posts coming.

I found some interesting links abount Perpetual Technology digital gear:

http://www.jeffchan.com/audio/p-1a-vs-d2d-1.html

http://www.jeffchan.com/audio/daif.html

This is the first negative stuff I have read about Perpetual that seems credible.

This reminds me a lot of videotape or film. In video there are 30 frames per second. If you try to improve this image (using the original 30 fps) it can only be assumed that you MUST be adding (THAT which was not already THERE to begin with).

One could duplicate each frame an additional 1, 2, 3 or however many times, and play them back at a faster rate. This might impart a "richer" more real looking image, but it's still only made up of what was there to begin with.

One might compare two consecutive images and interpolate what an image between these might look like and insert this creation. THIS still doesn’t give you higher resolution.

To my way of thinking up sampling isn't real sound improvement, its sound smoothing. The very nature of interpolative up sampling seems to fly in the face of what many folks on this site claim to desire: The BEST… The most accurate reproduction of the original sound - TAS.

I suspect that THIS version of “up sampling” being interpreted as “hi fidelity” is why so many folks continue to tout their vinyl.

It only stands to reason that the only way to gain higher resolution is to sample more frequently (capture more information) and play this information back at the appropriate corresponding rate(s).

So... 24/96... 24/192... HELL YES!

I just got a HDTV set which does line-doubler and the picture is terrific. I have not heard the CD with upsampling yet, however, I think it should be a positive one.