One correction comment on the oversampling part...one uses oversampling to provide a means by which the low pass filtering that occurs after the digital to analog conversion to be done with digital filtering and less of an analog “brick wall” filter. When one uses the 44.1 kHz samples, the analog filtering must provide a very steep drop off around 20 kHz in order to avoid spurious “things” appearing in the sound. This so-called “brick wall” filtering introduces phase and amplitude anomalies which some folks feel contribute to digital’s rather steely sound.
This oversampling technique can also be used on the recording side, thereby lessening the effect of the analog to digital filtering. The digitized oversamples can then be “smoothed” digitally in order to reduce to the CD’s 44.1 kHz sample rate.
Sorry for the geektalk, but there is good reason for oversampling.
Nothing in the above (probably boring) set O’paragraphs is meant to disparage or not disparage the PonoPlayer. It’ll succeed or fail based on its design and performance.
There is always a difference between recordings and live sound. It cannot be avoided. There is an interplay between beat frequencies that is lost in recordings that is always present in live music that cannot be recreated with the limited means of reproducing recordings. Our ears can pick up these beat frequencies that change with the positioning of each instrument. . . and each voice. When I sang lead bass with a large chorale, it was amazing what a different sound could be had by merely changing who sang next to each other. . . because the voice mixture changed. Same with instrument placement. This is lost in recordings. Even inaudible high frequency overtones can create beat frequency tones that are in the audible range that add to the ambiance of live music that can be missing from live music recorded in studio. I had a long discussion about this with our conductor. . . and he demonstrated it with a super-high quality multi-channel analog tape recording that recorded into inaudible ranges had been mastered to a CD. There was a huge jaw-dropping difference. He said a lot gets lost in the digitizing.