Wonderer

I hope I haven't lost all credibility with my blunder about digital mics. 😬 What I really was trying to focus on is the point at which the music is captured in some medium, which should have been expressed as analog tape vs some digital means (DTR, hard disk, SSD, etc). My question is really a kind of thought experiment that aims at comparing analog capturing with later hi-res mastering as opposed to 16-44 capturing with 16-44 mastering, with all other considerations (such as venue, skill, quality of equipment, etc) being held constant. It also takes the following assumptions as true which, if they are not, would probably render the exercise meaningless. Those assumptions are (1) much of the music captured during the Compact Disc era was captured digitally at 16-44 (and not at some higher resolution and later down-sampled to 16-44 just so it would fit on a CD; (2) that music captured and mastered today at some higher resolution (whether that is 24-96 or some higher level) is objectively superior (to the majority of listeners, at least) to pure analog (for purposes of this discussion, I am trying to avoid a debate as to the overall merits of digital vs. analog); and (3) 16-44 digital captures cannot be improved by higher resolution remastering (again, I seek to avoid issues such as whether adding some effect here or a filter there during remastering might result in a "better" final product; the assumption here is simply that upsampling to a higher resolution by itself should not objectively improve the original capture). So, to reformulate my question; Objectively speaking, with all other factors being equal, which recording should be superior: (1) an analog capture mastered digitally at a resolution higher than 16-44 (2) a 16-44 capture and master Assuming the validity of the question, then if the answer is, to quote @GUTB, "a 24-96 conversion taken from an analog source would be the better quality audio" than 16-44, then it might be possible to speculate as to whether the 16-44 era of music was actually a step back in terms of audio quality, given what we can do now with analog recordings digitally, and what we can accomplish with original higher resolution digital captures and mastering.

From the point of view of this amateur with no experience in music production, the history of music recording in the stereo era can be divided into 3 more or less distinct phases (with of course some overlap during transition periods): 1. Pure analog recording and recording - roughly late 1950's to late 1970s on vinyl records and magnetic tape (the Analog Era) 2. Digital recording and (re)mastering at 16 bits 44,100 on compact discs - early 1980s to approximately 2010 (just to pick a date) on compact discs and digital tape (the Compact Disc era) 3. High Resolution digital recording and (re)mastering at 24 bits and 44,100, 48,000, 88,200, 96,000 (more or less the norm at the moment), and 192,000 - 2010 - present via HiRes downloads and streaming (the HiRes era. During the Compact disc era, the most common recordings were either pure digital recordings made with digital mics, mastering, and medium (so-called DDD), and analog recordings mastered digitally at 16-44 and distributed digitally (so-called ADD). During the Hi-Res era, the most common recordings are made digitally at 24-96 and distributed via download, streaming, or audio discs capable of storing the larger sized hi-res recordings. My question concerns primarily the quality (theoretically speaking) of 16-44 digital recordings made during Compact Disc era as compared to Hi-Res remasters of analog recordings made today. Put another way, if it were possible to make 2 recordings of the same music, with one recorded with analog mics and then mastered at 24-96, and a second recorded with digital mics and mastered at 16-44, which recording should objectively sound better? (I am operating under the assumption that a purely hi-res digital recording and mastering would be superior to both.) The reason I ask this is because if it were the case that the hi-res remastered analog recordings are superior to the 16-44 digital recordings, then purely as a matter of historical interest, the Compact Disc era could be considered a step backward in terms of audio fidelity. I say this because we can remaster old analog recordings, but we can't improve 16-44 recordings except by upsampling, as to which again, I operate under the assumption does not objectively improve audio quality. Thus recordings made during the Compact Disc era that were considered benchmarks in terms of performance and recording quality at the time cannot be made better in the hi-res era, whereas pre-Compact Disc era recordings can be improved. Does this question make any sense? Am I missing something? Are any of my underlying assumptions faulty? Has this already been discussed ad naueum? (If so, I apologize and ask that someone might kindly direct me to a prior discussion). Thanks very much, Rod P.S. I am ignoring DSD because it is not directly comparable to the digital-analog comparisons I am interested in here. I am also deliberately ignoring historical differences between performers, venues, producers, etc. that may make objective comparison between recordings over time impossible. Rather, my question goes simply to the theoretical comparison under identical circumstances between hi-res remastered analog vs. 16-44 pure digital recording. If the question has any validity, then one can speculate about whether listeners may have suffered because of the inability to improve recordings made during the Compact Disc era. In other words, would we as listeners be better off today if recordings during the Compact Disc era were made with analog mics?