I will note on the better equipment, a bad recording shows all of the warts in the recording. Oversampling can be averaged out, but it requires specific equipment to do it. A series of AHB2 amplifiers running in mono mode to drive each speaker coupled with an Anthem AVM 70 or 90 could get around it to a degree. The Benchmark AHB2 is the only THX qualified amplifier capable of removing artifacting and other noise giving a clean signal
Benchmark's new AHB2 Power Amplifier - "The Quietest, Cleanest Audio Amplifier on the Planet"
benchmarkmedia.com
and it also gets very high marks from Amirm over on his boards. The testing for that is here
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Benchmark AHB2 Amplifier using THX technology to reduce distortion. I was going to request one for testing due to membership demand but to my pleasant surprise, the company volunteered to contact me and send not one, but two units! I requested...
www.audiosciencereview.com
Now given this, I am admitting I am drooling over the idea of putting in a DAC3 HGC coupled with one of the AHB2 for my computer system. But I have noticed as well my new MRX-740 is also very good at removing noise as well in the audio system. If you turn up your volume when no input is being played do you hear a hiss? If you do you have an audible noise floor that interacts with the audio. It is no mean feat to remove the hiss by lowering the noise floor. Lowered noise floor removes the artifacting from additive noise in the audio stream. This can impact audio clarity.
If your equipment is older, you might also be subject to capacitor degradation as well as resister degradation as well. Eventually that "wear" will show up also as artifacting. If you remove the two sources mentioned by proper selections, what you have left is the quality of the audio recording. Fixing that would require a remaster of the source material by a good audio engineer who knows what they are hearing and how to eliminate the issues involved.