I have to agree with many of you. At first listen, upsampling seems to make things sound much better, smoother, more analog and natural. But continued critical listening reveals issues of unnatural, fatiguing sound that eventually has me running back to a native bitrate. Ideally, I've found that a 24/96 native recording played back without up- or down-sampling seems to be the sweet spot. But I listen to thousands of well-recorded 16/24 CD's ripped to my server that sound so great I never want for more. A well-recorded Redbook CD is a wonder to hear.
That being said, in many cases streaming music sources can sound better upsasmpled. And mp3 files, at any bitrate, sound much better upsampled to at least 24/96. With good upsampling mp3 can almost sound listenable.
My impressions of this are not limited by equipment, or source materials. I've tried this experiment on the highest of high-end DAC's, servers, CD transports, etc. in world-class reference-quality systems, with every bitrate and quality of recording, and the issues always eventually reveal themselves.
On my setup I listen to everything through my server at native bitrate, with NO digital manipulation (delays, EQ, balance controls, etc.). Over thousands of hours of listening I've come to the conclusion that I want to hear what was recorded, as it was recorded, warts and all. I don't want a polished turd ...I'd rather know it's a turd and learn to live with that. In my collection I have many great perfomances that were recorded horribly. I'm OK with that, because my great performances that were recorded well sound like heaven.
The more resolution your room and system provide, the easier it is to hear these differences. In an acoustically isolated high-end system the fatigue of upsampling is impossible to ignore. At least that's been my experience...
That being said, in many cases streaming music sources can sound better upsasmpled. And mp3 files, at any bitrate, sound much better upsampled to at least 24/96. With good upsampling mp3 can almost sound listenable.
My impressions of this are not limited by equipment, or source materials. I've tried this experiment on the highest of high-end DAC's, servers, CD transports, etc. in world-class reference-quality systems, with every bitrate and quality of recording, and the issues always eventually reveal themselves.
On my setup I listen to everything through my server at native bitrate, with NO digital manipulation (delays, EQ, balance controls, etc.). Over thousands of hours of listening I've come to the conclusion that I want to hear what was recorded, as it was recorded, warts and all. I don't want a polished turd ...I'd rather know it's a turd and learn to live with that. In my collection I have many great perfomances that were recorded horribly. I'm OK with that, because my great performances that were recorded well sound like heaven.
The more resolution your room and system provide, the easier it is to hear these differences. In an acoustically isolated high-end system the fatigue of upsampling is impossible to ignore. At least that's been my experience...