Which Should Sound Better: (1) Analog Recording (Re)Mastered at 24-96 or (2) Digital Recording at 16-44?

[davide256]

IME the quality of CD recordings depends on the original engineers skills and the data density of the material. If the original instrumentation is not complex CD rate

does fine. But if it is, thats when 48/24 or better makes a difference. Remasters can be less enjoyable, if the next engineer isn't as skilled or the original masters weren't that great.

 

[davide256]

1 hour ago, Wonderer said:

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.

 

If the original master was good, used with an information rich piece, an analog tape master can have more data density than a 24/96 recording.

 

But 44/16 was not a step back for the average consumer who had a built in Garrard turntable in the early 80's with a flip needle for 33 1/3 &78's... it was a more reliable

technology that could sound better at the low end of price for a player. Most of the woes of CD rate have turned out to be the time it's taken to bring  a decent DAC

down to an affordable consumer price and to reach the point where we  use music ripped to disc vs using a CD "spinner". 

 

As I understand it the virtues of higher rates often aren't from more information but rather that many DAC's behave better for  D/A conversion filters, in moving

distortion products out of the audible range. It is quite popular to up-sample music for this reason alone with DAC's that behave this way

 

 

[davide256]

2 hours ago, GUTB said:

Yes, 16-44 was an enormous move backwards for audio. The average consumer doesn't place a high value in audio quality; they did value reliability and low-noise aspect of early digital audio. Audiophiles were stuck in dark ages of early DACs, first built into CD players. The break-out of high-resolution digital audio did offer us (audiophiles) some relief, but it really took the super high-end DACs based on discrete ladders and, later, super chips like the 9018 and equivalents.

money can disconnect you from the differing  reality of what ordinary people can afford...

[davide256]

52 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

A real step backwards? Ah, no. I have quite a few CD rips with their 24/96 and 24/192 counterparts, same master where I cannot tell them apart. Done carefully, 16/44.1 can sound wonderful.

and I have some 96/24 remasters that sound worse than the original... but thats usually where the original had an exceptional engineer.