@mofimadness, your article reminded me of something I read some months back regarding Direct Metal Mastering (DMM) - see link below:
I am squarely in the digital domain these days, but the process described in the article seems intriguing enough. What’s implied is that the closer one gets to the mother disk, the higher quality the musical reproduction.
Maybe a major tangent - while fidelity is clearly inferior to today’s standards, I am intrigued by the presence of many acoustic non-electronic recordings (Caruso, Louis Armstrong, etc.). One might argue that subsequent electronic-based technologies always add some level of distortion. Question: could one improve on the old Edison cylinder or 78 non-electric technologies and bring them to modern standards?
Just a thought.
Gorm