Frankly I don’t see anything wrong with using digital references. Master dubs on the other hand I have a problem with. Where did they come from? What mics were used? How many mics? What kind of a mixing console? Who was the engineer? It is hard to know some times. Might be good, might not
I’m not understanding this. How or why is "What mics were used?", "mixing console?", etc. an issue for tape recorded music but not for digital recording? (Whether from original digital recording or digital copy of analog recording.)