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I have a vinyl record that says it has been digitally remastered - this would mean that there is no true analogue wave anymore. One reason I still have and buy vinyl albums is because they are supposed to be analogue. Is the digital wave on a remastered vinyl any better than a CD (44kHz/16bit) or would it be something closer to the studio quality digital audio?

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Analogue medium do technically have a higher dynamical range than digital due to the nature of being analogue ("atom"-level wave description, although you have material limitations of the material vinyl itself, but still). If the human ear can hear the difference of a 24-bit digital version of it, or even a 16-bit version, is of course open for debate.

If the content on the vinyl has been digitally re-mastered the dynamic range of the analogue version would naturally have been capped off. The main purpose however is to remove hiss, noise, improve spatial and EQ area and such. Putting it back on vinyl you will still not be able to avoid static electricity and other "flaws" of the vinyl medium so in my opinion it is not necessary better if the original recording, provided it was all analogue, sounded good as it was.

If it has been digitally (re)mastered it will sound "better" (technically speaking as this will be a matter of opinion) on CD as the benefits of analogue (mainly dynamic range) is gone.

(Also as a side-note, the best mastering engineers uses analogue processing such as tape-saturation in their chain, but you will end up digital at the end nowadays. However, the membrane of the loudspeaker will remain analogue - nothing will change that for a while).

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Trust me, I'm not here for the 24bit vs 16bit debate (there have been too many of those)! But would the sample-rate and bit-depth of the digital audio pressed onto a vinyl be higher than those of a CD (44.1kHz/16bit)? For example would they do the digital "mastering" with 192kHz/32bit audio? Or would the mixers just downsample it to "CD quality"? – Keegan McCarthy Dec 27 '12 at 6:36
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Usually the processing itself is done nowadays at 24-bit or 32-bit float (the latter is eventually converted to 24-bit integer). The Hz is not so important other than when dealing with anti-aliasing. But for vinyl 24-bit resolution is preferable (order of tracks matter too, and they can be mastered differently as outer tracks "behave" differently than inner tracks when it comes to vinyl). All in all tracks for vinyl are typically mastered specifically for this medium. But of course, no rule without exception - some could be "cynical" and use the same master for vinyl, cd and digital stores. – Ken - Abdias Software Dec 27 '12 at 6:49

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