Are high sample rates making your music sound worse?

@tatyana69 -

 The Ultravox tracks 'Vienna' and 'All Stood Still' sound good to my ears, so my answer to your question is "No" Ultravox do not make poor recordings. These are the only two tracks I have that are digital. My personal views only.

@lvrooman54
Interesting findings, my reference is also vinyl. Is there much difference in sq between the mp3 and wav? Thanks

I did my best to evaluate precisely that. The WAV file being the reference, (which included click/noise reduction) I experimented with many iterations of LAME/MP3 settings until I could not tell the difference in the conversion. I don't consider my ears the best, as they've been abused/damaged in the workplace. So these 'other' ears are a valuable resource for this result. And I edit in 32-bit on purpose, not 16.

Vinyl is reported to have a noise floor of roughly -65dBFS, so I don’t see how any ADC or conversion technique can make it better than CD at -96dBFS, unless you are adding noise-shaped dither, in which case the same can be done for 16/44.1.

I submit you may not have experienced the range of features and options available in Adobe Audition. Adobe purchased Cool Edit 2000, and has made a lot of improvements. (I started with Cool Edit 2000)

Audition's 'Analysis' of LPs before click and pop and other noise reduction says LP dynamic range starts in the 40s for bad ones, and I'll agree with your number of 65 for only the very best. (very rare) I can't recall the last time I saw one that good. They are typically in the 50s. (per Audition)

Just to mention that the figures touted for CD SNR and Dynamic Range of 90 dB or more are strictly theoretical. In practice the ordinary drawbacks of the playback system and room not to mention the *intentional overly aggressive dynamic range compression* that’s fairly rampant in the industry over the past twenty years or so obviously limits those numbers. How much? Answer at 11.