Yes, when discussing Pono it's important to differentiate between Pono the device and Pono the push towards higher sampling rates. The former may very well be b

Yes, when discussing Pono it's important to differentiate between Pono the device and Pono the push towards higher sampling rates. The former may very well be better than other mobile devices in important ways as you mentioned. The latter is not backed up by evidence, but perched precariously on a conflation of the sound of low bit rate lossy compression and RedBook CD (which while on the edge, is adequate for delivery as far as the current evidence shows), and the naive misconception that faster and faster sampling equals better sound. There are solid technical reasons why 192 kHz sampling is too fast [1], even ignoring the evidence that shows that we don't benefit from the additional bandwidth (note the difference between modulator speed and sample rate!). There are scenarios when up-sampling an already digitised signal before certain kinds of processing is very beneficial (to reduce aliasing in the audible range), but that's an entirely separate discussion. [1] http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf