There is inherent data loss when storing audio in a digital format. The fact that digital allows only two values forces audio, a continuous analog sound wave, to be saved as discrete values (i.e. a collection of points). You can increase the number of data points per second as much as you want, but there will always be points "in between" that aren't recorded (also file size increases). Most music you get from iTunes or the like has a sampling rate of ~44.1 kHz, or twice the highest frequency most people can hear (this ensures that frequencies at or below 22.05 kHz are recorded perfectly according to the Nyquist Theorem).
Now, supposedly you can still hear the difference in the music if the sampling rate is higher than the standard 44.1 kHz to include frequencies you can't normally hear. These frequencies are lost in digital format at 44.1 kHz. Vinyl records, however, are an analog medium that can store those higher frequencies. Singhcr's posts linked by Chipster talk about how they are produced to allow this.
Most remasters are done digitally now. Some people are really particular about getting the highest quality music possible where the data never enters a digital format. I personally don't really perceive enough of a difference to care, but there's my overly pedantic post on the subject.
Topic: Remastered albums (Read 1228 times)