CDs at 44.1kHz are generally better than human hearing and if they aren't perfectly-flat to 20KHz they are usually "almost-flat" to 20kHz or beyond.
Presumably, the DSP (at 48kHz) is there to improve the sound (over what it would be without DSP) whether you're using the analog or digital input.
It would be more precise to say it can't go over 24kHz. In the real world there are non-ideal anti-aliasing filters and for example you're not going to get 23,999Hz. And even without filters you get noticeable modulation as you get close the Nyquist limit. Well... noticeable if you can hear it... You can hear modulation if you generate a 3999Hz tone at a sample rate of 8kHz.
Of course it's "nice" if the equipment and the recording cover the "full traditional" 20-20kHz range.
I'm NOT arguing for lower performance, but the guys who researched psychoacoustics and designed lossy perceptual compression (MP3, etc.) discovered that even if you can hear to 20kHz in a hearing test, the highest harmonics in normal program material are masked (drowned-out) by slightly-lower frequencies. If you can hear that high, your hearing isn't as sensitive at the extremes, and any content at the highest frequencies is "weak" harmonics to begin with. If you hear compression artifacts in "high quality" MP3s, it's usually not the loss of high-frequencies that you hear.
I’m quite sensible to compression algorithms, as I have a considerable visual impairment (not blind but enough to need hear to many things), even high quality MQA appears distorted to me.
I have the impression that has more to be with the phase space than the frequency, for example with headphones reproducing MP3, MQA and other loosy formats I tend to be confused in instrument location…
Not the same thing with monitors, but in general I use acoustic fields to improve my balance (for example I run with altered posture if I use headphones, and even walking with music my head and neck don’t move as normal).
Discussing this phenomenon with my ORL, we think that seem to be related with some capacity of perceive time delay within left and right side of reflected sound from the floor and walls.
Nevertheless the only way I have to test DSP impact on music scene is to hear it, in stereo of course because mono listenings don’t bothers when music is compressed.
Hope you’re right and even with analogue connections I won’t perceive artifacts.
If not, I will go with full analogue path with a pair of Genelecs 8030 that were my first choice, but Neumann specs are so high that who resist the temptation to try…