Can upsamplers alter a CD's sonic performance?


If I take a regular CD, recorded at 16/44 and put it in the tray of an upsampler player, will it play that CD at a higher rate, say,192 or something similiar? My question really is, merely by dropping the disc in the unit, will it perform/sound better?
sal
Well said Plsl, I agree especially with the second 1/2 of your post. Cheers. Craig
Be sure to check out this link from Musical Fidelity on their new upsampling CD player. I read about it today in the Gramophone magazine BEFORE I made my above post. http://www.musical-fidelity.co.uk/
Depends on total design of CDP/DAC, just because a unit has upsampling DAC doesn't mean it will sound better then one that doesn't, but it has the potential to if other design issues are properly addressed.

The reason the original signal is upsampled, by adding dither, is noise atrifacts can be removed easier without harming original signal. The type of DA filtering used is crucial to perserving natural sounding high frequencies,
and overall natural detail and focus.

There are other issues, jitter control/clock design, use of audiophile grade capacitors/resistors, control of EMI/RFI and many other design details are needed to make a great sounding digital front end.

Also because of this many cheaper external DACS sound better than very expensive CDPs with built in DAC. The last 3 yrs has produced more improvement in digital sound than the previous 20, upsampling is one piece of this puzzle.
Everyone who comes to this post needs to read Megasam's response. As he stated; with upsampling, noise artifacts can be removed easier without harming the signal.

This is very simple and straight forward explanation to why upsampling can potentially improve a digital player or dac.

I feel that many of the publications and other so called "experts" are confusing audiophiles about what upsampling is, and why it works. In my opinion, Megasams' answer sums up what upsampling does in one simple sentence.
Last August I posteed a thread asking if a CD droped into a transport tray hooked to an upsampling DAC would saidCD sound significantly better. Well, 2 weeks ago I bought an Electrocompaniet ECD1 192 upsampling DAC and hooked it to my MAC 205 player. It was a demo so the unit was burned in. WOW! What an unbelievable improvement in the sound of my CDs. I just can't say enough to express the changes this upsampler made!