Loved jcx's post ,,, even though I myself have a true Quadraphonic decoder still functioning, and lots of Quad LP's. And two fine TTs, but I hardly use them.
Question for jcx -- why the dither step to get 44.1? Decimate the 96 to get 48, a half-sample. All DACs I know of handle 48, and I believe it is the native resolution of many Apple devices. Certainly that's the case for the older iPods.
I use 48 FLAC or Apple Lossless for all my PMPs, figuring why tax their limited hardware computing capabilities during real-time playback to do a conversion to 48, a dithered upsample from 44.1, or a decimation from 96? I would rather do that myself on the Mac or PC.
For redbook CDs copied bit-for-bit via EAC, I do the 44.1 --> 48 conversion on a laptop as well. Ditto for 96 or 192 bit-for-bit copies from DVD-A's using underground software, or 88.2 or 176.4 decimation samples from SACDs using underground hardware, most notably a PlayStation with the exactly correct firmware (or an undocumented feature of my Wadia CDP, although that's only 88.2).
The result beats even half-speed master LPs with 24/96 ADC, even with top-of-the-line ADC hardware. Exactly as you say, it's about noise level. As I said in an earlier post, this is comparing the same recording, half-speed master LP vs SACD.