Ok, I have a 1k+$ of sound equipment, I listen to lossless, and my equipment is 24/192 DAC in hardware (so even if I pass 16/44.1, it will get up-converted). Now give me 24/192 music and don't tell me "you don't need it", because I need it.
But for my mobile phone and 29$ earpods, 96 kbps 16/44.1 mp3 from soundcloud is good enough.
Well... There are a great many (infinite, really) possible input signals that will all generate the same 16/44 recording, but some of those inputs are more likely than others. You could simulate the likeliest and "record" it at 24/192.
It's also "impossible" to upscale an image, but the difference between bilinear and bicubic and sinc upscaling is readily apparent.
This of course assumes that the listener is capable of discerning 24/192 sound.
Dure, but there's no reason to expect you lose anything, either, barring implementation errors. Lots of the TV you watch looks fine, despite being a 720p signal displayed on a 1080p display. Same concept.
There is a good section in here describing why not only do you not need it, if you use it (as a terminal/listening format) you are probably just making things worse.
A system designed end to end to play 24/192 (not the DAC, it's the amps, speakers etc. you have to worry about) could do this reasonably, but you aren't putting that together for $1k. Or probably $10k. Mainly because there is no point, if the mix down is done right you can't physically hear the differences anyway.
It's a good format for mixing, and a hopeless one for listening.
But for my mobile phone and 29$ earpods, 96 kbps 16/44.1 mp3 from soundcloud is good enough.