In this context, lossless just means "the same quality as it was originally recorded in, which is sufficiently high for all practical purposes". And since our hearing only goes up to 20kHz, if you record at a sample rate of 44.1kHz -- just above the Nyquist frequency -- you'll be able to faithfully reproduce the original audio to within the precision afforded by your bit depth (generally 16 or 24 bit). Sort of like how a RAW image is considered lossless because it contains every single pixel captured, even though it can only represent finitely many distinct colors and cannot zoom in infinitely far with no degradation.

Small correction: "bit for bit identical sound data as it was rendered at the final stage of production (mastering)"†.

Technically, our hearing plays no role in this, the requirement is just preserving the same sampling rate and dynamic range.

†NB: industrial standard is preparing a master pack of different files from the same final render, including lossy mp3.

Short answer: no. Digital audio can reproduce analog audio flawlessly already. Chris "Monty" Montgomery has some excellent videos on the topic that I was coincidentally listening to just this morning. This Verge article sums it up and links to his really excellent talks.

https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/6/9680140/chris-montgomery-...

The point was not "flawlessly" but lossless.

Lossy and lossless has to do with the encoding not the signal processing. I'm just saying it is entirely possible to replicate an analog signal with a digital intermediary. Losslessness depends on the software.

I understand that the lossless part is only the compression from the original digital file: what you play is bit by bit what the publisher uploaded. Just like BMP vs JPEG. Not about maintaining the analog resolution.