Forgive the amateurish line of questioning here, as I'm simply trying to educate myself.
Rolling Stone has, within the past few days, published an in-depth article about Pono, wherein they state that Warner music has recently converted 8,000 of its' albums to hi-res in anticipation of this project. Now, I don't know if these were previously prepared unreleased SACDs or if they were genuinely worked on specifically for this format, but the one question I keep returning to is this:
Let's say that a recording was originally captured at 24/88 or even 24/96 before being dithered down to the redbook standard of 16/44. How is it then possible to "convert" anything to a bit width or sample rate greater than that to which it was originally recorded?
The common answer I've read to my inquiry is that the original master, whether captured digitally or otherwise, was first recorded at a given bitrate, then mixed through, say, an analog setup, after which it is then transferred in the desired bitrate before being sent for mastering. I know that's extremely vague, but I'm hoping others more knowledgeable in this area than I can fill in the gaps.
Also, one thing I'd like to offer up some speculation on are the dual outputs on the device. We know the hardware itself is very much akin to the iBasso DX100. Storage, decoder, dac, amp, all in what looks like a mini Toblerone box. Although I personally feel that a standalone PMP is quite obsolete, I'm fine with this.
What I haven't heard many mention is the fact that the second jack is more than likely a line-out. I'm envisioning this scenario. You're commuting, it's a DX100. You return home, plug it into your computer, line out to speakers, now it's an iBasso D7 with storage, an outboard DAC/headphone amp enabling any PC, Mac or home hi-fi to handle all of that hi-res goodness. One device for commute/office/home. Choose your own software for playback on a computer. The store is merely a website, if not a dedicated iTunes-like client. It would certainly appear the store/delivery mechanism is undoubtedly going to be the main focus, so the whole idea of multi-function hardware seems to make sense.
I'm also going to post this elsewhere to try and gather as much insight as possible. Thanks if you've read all the way through.
