Hi Drew and welcome to the forums.
This is a tough one to answer. I guess in theory and on paper/graphs, oversampling and upsampling provides the end user with more impressive result. Maybe something for companies to use as their main marketting point?
But for the end users/tuners who base their decisions on how it sounds (mainly by ear), then it sounds most impressive. These sort of people (like myself) aren't particularly worried about specs and values (to a point of course!) printed on paper, but more about it how it sounds.
Have a read through the following link:
http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/56463/1164182.aspxIt has the 2 different groups of people I mention above, battling it out
To me, the oversampling on my marantz cd94 seemed to viel, smear the sound slightly. Removing the oversampling chip gave the sound more clarity, sharper/more precise decays of notes. The sound seemed to be more open. No sonic disadvantages that I could tell.
Please don't get me started on upsampling!! First 48 then 96, 192, 384, 768kbps upsampling.. when will they stop???
This is just in my experience/opinion though.. so it's not something to take seriously
Enjoy your stay,
Tuyen