In a church, lots of echo (but phase is random due to many reflections) and we love it. In a samll room with mirrors, echo is too strong and coherent, we hate it. Tube add some distortion, we may like the extra harmonics. You are right about these except upsampling.
Upsampling or true higher sampling like SACD allows DSP to operate at lower noise and DAC is easier to achieve good result compared to original CD. But it means to be "more accurate", not like privous bad things turning out to be good. Even though it is less noisy does not mean it has no distortion. Processing DSP and DAC in real CKT is not distortion free, so different methods of upsampling still carry it's own charactor(from different distortion) on the sound. That's why different upsampling machine still has its own flavor. You may like the flavor. Yet don't forget that upsampling has more added flavor than SACD because upsampling is still engineering added iteration v.s. bit by bit real SACD. And engineers have the freedom to sweat it more on upsampling trying differnt iterations but there is no game on SACD(not needed anyway).
There is a negative side on upsampling. Some musician or recording engineer may protest the upsampling because it use the same method to DSP process all CD's. In the end, it will make all CD's sound more or less the same(or say close). And it might be smoother than real live one is, even the performer intends to make it rough. There is a dangerous thing, good or bad singers all sound pretty smooth, you can't tell good v.s. bad singers and recording engineers any more. Keep adding the same sugar to every cake can be "unwanted" at some point. You can't tell its blueberry or redberry, all you got are sweat cakes.
The nice thing is that you still can use all your CD collections.
"Tube" is kind of doing the same thing, so it all depends customer's choice. Enjoy the music.
BTW don't forget that you like upsampled one because its DSP/DAC operating at higher rate like SACD. New CD machines take the idea and try to improve the sound. Does it tell you which format is better technology?
Upsampling or true higher sampling like SACD allows DSP to operate at lower noise and DAC is easier to achieve good result compared to original CD. But it means to be "more accurate", not like privous bad things turning out to be good. Even though it is less noisy does not mean it has no distortion. Processing DSP and DAC in real CKT is not distortion free, so different methods of upsampling still carry it's own charactor(from different distortion) on the sound. That's why different upsampling machine still has its own flavor. You may like the flavor. Yet don't forget that upsampling has more added flavor than SACD because upsampling is still engineering added iteration v.s. bit by bit real SACD. And engineers have the freedom to sweat it more on upsampling trying differnt iterations but there is no game on SACD(not needed anyway).
There is a negative side on upsampling. Some musician or recording engineer may protest the upsampling because it use the same method to DSP process all CD's. In the end, it will make all CD's sound more or less the same(or say close). And it might be smoother than real live one is, even the performer intends to make it rough. There is a dangerous thing, good or bad singers all sound pretty smooth, you can't tell good v.s. bad singers and recording engineers any more. Keep adding the same sugar to every cake can be "unwanted" at some point. You can't tell its blueberry or redberry, all you got are sweat cakes.
The nice thing is that you still can use all your CD collections.
"Tube" is kind of doing the same thing, so it all depends customer's choice. Enjoy the music.
BTW don't forget that you like upsampled one because its DSP/DAC operating at higher rate like SACD. New CD machines take the idea and try to improve the sound. Does it tell you which format is better technology?