"My understanding is that all, or at least the vast majority, of downloads offered by HD Tracks are nothing more than existing older standard resolution analog masters transferred to PCM or DSD format digital files. Standard resolution recordings transferred to a hi-resolution format cannot produce hi-res music files. An analogy is transferring a steak served on a small plate to a larger plate; the steak will still taste the same and there is no improvement in taste. Music originally recorded on a multi-track analog reel-to-reel recorder will have limited dynamic range, a higher noise floor, a limited frequency response and less detail than the same music recorded directly to digital."
That's really not true. Standard resolution seems to be a marketing term more than anything. If you don't believe me, try to find a definition. My best guess is that you are referring to Redbook, when you say standard resolution. Most recordings are not done at 16/44. They are recorded at a better quality and then down sampled to CD quality. As long as you are getting the resolution that the recording was made at, you should be getting better than CD quality. For analog recordings, there's no limit on resolution. Quality will vary depending on how well the recording was made. It can range from very high, better than CD quality, to very low quality.
