This video helped me understand the actual issues around digital audio encoding. It's nice to use brain space for facts instead of woo. If you're convinced that digital anything is inherently inferior to analog, it should clear some things up.

https://www.xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

Here's a post on the same site that addresses Pono more directly. Also very helpful for developing your understanding.

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html