I work in the movie post production sound industry, with music scoring.

Anyway, most masters are recorded in 24 bit and usually 48K for the individual "tracks". The mixdowns are increasingly done at 96 or 192K sampling rate.

The advent of digital audio workstations like the ProTools that I use has made higher resolution recording as easy and painless as just clicking a button on the screen. It's no big deal to use higher resolutions, so there is no reason no to do so.

Just don't attribute the improved sound you are hearing with recent recordings and reissues completely to the higher resolution recording formats. The real reason you are hearing better sound is by better recording techniques (more purist oriented) and in the case of reissues, better mastering methods than were available even 5 years ago.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited April 07, 2004).]