My reply stemmed from your earlier implication, probably tongue in cheek, that reel to reel tape was best, but if that is your criterion all recordings are poor and the technology used inadequate.
My criterion is accurate toi the microphone. Analogue tape isn't. The changes made to the signal to make an LP manufacturable mean it isn't. Digital is. even at 16/48 IME on the type of music I listen to (no jangling key symphonies for me)
For me, anymore, it's all in the recording technique. And it's strange, sometimes. For instance, I've never heard a 'studio' recording of solo Chopin piano works that sounded like a real piano in my living room. I think it's the way the microphones are placed. Not that the recordings sound 'bad'. Or that they don't sound like a piano. Just not like what I hear in a concert hall or a small venue. The question that comes to my mind is, how many microphones are used, where are they placed, and how are they mixed into a two track recording? This has nothing to do with either digital or analog tape.
My most recent is a six volume set [16/44 flac download] played by Japanese pianist Takako Takahashi, recorded around 2005. Nice dynamics, a perfect digital sound, but the solo piano just doesn't come across as if it's in my living room. On the other hand, yesterday I was listening to a couple of Bill Evans LPs released on an 'audiophile' label [
Portrait in Jazz- recorded at Reeves Sound Studios, NYC, December 28, 1959 and
Everybody Digs Bill Evans-recorded December 15, 1958]; the sound was very natural-like. These analog recordings sounded more natural than those done in 50 years later. I really think it's
recording technique, and not the medium. Of course, with LP, even a 180g audiophile pressing, you get the extraneous surface noise. But for me that doesn't take away or mask how the recording was miked and mixed.