I suspect analog tape straight to vinyl (more or less) is the most perfect. For long term beyond the 10 to 20 years of digital storage media (oh where are all my 1990s .wav files or 1990s digital photographs?), again analog tape is probably the only medium
There is no doubt in my mind that the quality of the recording one is playing often makes more difference than either the equipment being used to reproduce it or the format it is being delivered on.
I have been making amateur recordings since the early 1960s starting with a mono valve reel-to-reel recorder going to a Revox B77 as funds allowed then a StellaDAT digital tape deck then solid state digital recorders.
My experience is that considerable experience was required to set correct levels on all the analogue recorders I had. Getting the level set high enough so maximum level wasn’t too audibly distorted but quiet levels didn’t descend to far into the noise was difficult and not always achieved.
Setting levels on the StellaDAT was fairly easy by contrast since there is much more undistorted, noise free dynamic range. In fact my first use of the Stella was the first time I had heard the output of a recorder audibly indistinguishable from the microphone feed, it never was with any tape recorder I had used.
So I would say that IME digital recorders are definitely more accurate at reproduction than a reel-to-reel tape.
Having written that an even more important skill IME is microphone choice and, particularly, placement. Not much point in having accurate reproduction of a poorly placed microphone.
My guess is that all too often, particularly in these days of inexpensive multi-channel recorders and a plethora of mikes, the idea of post recording mix sorting out shortcomings has become popular despite being, probably, wrong.
I read an article in the paper a while ago of an experienced film sound engineer bemoaning the fact that younger directors insist on microphones being placed according to their visual requirements believing, wrongly, everything can be sorted at the sound mixing post production stage.
It was his explanation of why there is poor and in distinct diction in quite a few films these days.
So I am in no doubt from my experience that digital recorders are more accurate at reproduction than any analogue ones but fear the SQ shortcomings come from slapdash or inexperienced microphone layouts and too much dicking about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear at the mastering and mixing stage.
