Do people upsample? If so, why? I’m not arguing one way or the other, just want to understand the logic.
(I’m coming from experience with graphics, and there, upsampling a raster file is rarely a good strategy, but I don’t know how direct the analogy is with audio)
My personal experience tells me that there is absolutely no advantage for a listener in upsampling.
Only reason to do it for the producers, engineers and so on is the possibility DURING this processings better to work with details.
My subjective impression as a listener: Upsampling is worse.
I convert my to my 44.1/16 files to 192/24. It started because some of the cheaper DACs have a fixed anti-alias filter. Nothing wrong with that but the manufacturers do not always pick the correct filter so I decided to upsample my files so I can select the filter. It works (I use Sox) but what I learnt was:
1 Should have done it at 96/24. 192 is a waste.
2 You must drop signal by at least 3.5dB. Otherwise it can sound hash.
3 It is really debatable if I can tell the difference.
To be honest it’s now part of my process.