Sorry WM but virtually all studios now record and mix at 24 bit resolution with either 96khz or 192khz sampling rate. Have done for years actually. These masters then have to be downconverted to 44.1khz for copying to CD. This signal decimation seems to be one of the main causes of the typical CD sound. If the studios didn't have to downsample the signal, I am sure we would effectively get master tape performance from our silver discs (after all, most modern recordings are stored on hard drives anyway)