Are Digitally mastered LPs any better than CDs?

I read somewhere that good engineers never downconvert high-rez digital masters directly to 16/44. What they do is record the high-rez master to analog tape 1st, then transfer the tape to 16/44, eliminating distortions that occur during downsampling.

Of course, going to vinyl directly from hi-rez digital should sound better than 16/44 digital.

What Photon46 said! That's my experience exactly. For me, a "digitally recorded" classical record may not be my first choice, but it's not a deal-killer. I have several that are very musically satisfying, and that's what it's all about, isn't it?
These include a young Josh Bell playing violin concertos, a recital album by Kiri Te Kanawa, several Mozart piano concertos on Hungaraton, and the Romero brothers tearing it up on classical guitar.

I also went to the trouble of getting an LP off eBay UK of the digitally recorded "Question and Answer" jazz trio by Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, and Roy Haynes. It is one of my very favorites. My digitally recorded Geffen LPs sound pretty good to me.

They'll never supplant "Kind of Blue," "Muddy Waters, Folk Singer," or the analog-recorded Diana Krall LPs though.

Probably the best way to listen to a digital master is with a vinyl LP. Digital is a brittle, lossy medium that doesn't transfer well to the home media, in spite of the "bitz is bitz" claims. Digital becomes drier, edgier and more jittery the further it gets from the masters, whereas analog retains warmth and fullness even with generational losses. I have a couple of LPs that sound quite a bit better than their CD counterparts, even with digital mastering and mixing.
Some LPs from the early to mid 80's can sound like crappy CDs, but a lot of digital LPs are quite desirable, such as the Philips classic digitals and the GRP label associated with Dave Grusin.
Try getting a hold of one of Billy Cobham's GRP LP releases, that sound like they have very little if any compression. You will probably not inherently object to digital mastering in and of itself after hearing one of those. The GRPs can have very quiet surfaces and wide dynamics.
One of the most prominent of the "digital LPs" is Dire Straits "Brothers at Arms". I don't hear many analog lovers complaining much about that one.

don't be too sure vinyl is hi-rez. Much of it is not, call some pressing plants and see what they usually get, you will find a lot of vinyl comes right from a cd master at 44.1. There are not rules of course, but i think this idea is being spread around and quite often it is not the case. This is no comment on the sound quality, of course.

>> 09-01-08: Mothra
>> don't be too sure vinyl is hi-rez. Much of it is not, call some pressing plants and see what they usually get, you will find a lot of vinyl comes right from a cd master at 44.1.

It'd be great if there was a way to trace a particular vinyl album's recording lineage to see if the master was analog, hi-rez, or 16/44. Could devote a whole website to the topic.