It's difficult. There aren't usually disclaimers or descriptions of the recording and mix down process. Sometimes the only way is to drop the needle. Most of the time a lack of midrange smoothness and a dead top end is a dead giveaway. Sometimes a soft flat bass is in there to boot. Lot's of late 70's early 80's DG Classical was digitally recorded and mastered in either digital or analog before the 2 channel analog mix down. My experience is they sucked, and the CD versions, often taken off the 2 channel analog mix down also sucked. That said, Herbie Hankock records that were recorded in digital often sound quite good and lots of Jazz in the early 80's got the same treatment and sound very good, just a little hot, so it's going to me a mixed bag.

You just have to take your chances sometimes. And that OK Computer album did suck. Fortunately most other Radiohead LP's sound very good so I'm inclined to believe that regardless of whether the remaster was done digitally or in analog, they probably used a different board or mastering guy and it would have sucked regardless of format. Read the back of the disks and see.

I have some vinyl records that were produced back in the 1980s when digital was relatively new, and they proudly claim that they are "DIGITAL" recordings.

Some are very good, although others are not.

Many early digital recordings were mastered using early Sony digital tape decks, which were not very good.

On the other hand, the Soundstream system, for one, was quite good.

I have a CD that I bought in 1984, at the same time I bought my first primitive Phillips CD player. It was recorded by Delos using Soundstream, and it sounds excellent to this day. (Delos CD4001, "Nothin But the Blues")

I also have some Telarc discs that were recorded in the 1980s that are not very good at all...yuk.

It has been mathematically proved to the satisfaction of virtually every engineer that 16-bit resolution is so accurate that the noise level of most circuitry is far more significant than any errors in the digital medium itself. The accuracy of any any D/A converter or A/D converter is a simple question of circuit performance quality, and certainly can vary.

Virtually EVERY recording that is made now goes direct from the microphones to A/D converters and onto hard drives, and the digital mastering takes place there and then on to the D/A converter and the production of the metal masters for vinyl pressing.

There are very few studios that still have professional quality analog tape decks and can do a complete analog to analog mastering process. One company that has a large catalog of all-analog recordings is the OPUS3 label of Sweden. Their records are amazing, but hard to get anymore.

Music Direct has a lot of high-quality vinyl records in their catalog.

Many were originally recorded in the studio on analog tape and are still all-analog recordings.

Fourpobs, reading your post I felt like you were saying exactly what Ive been thinking. I bought a turntable a month ago and started buying vinyl. So far, I've bought ten LP's. Most are audiophile 180 gram, but some aren't, and my experience so far is that you don't know what you're gonna get until you get home and drop the needle on it,like one of the other respondents said. I've got one new LP with really crappy sound quality, about five with good sound quality(better than CD), and four with sound quality that blows every other medium away completely. Even though we can't know for sure what we're getting,for me the experience of hearing a vinyl LP that blows digital away makes it worth the gamble. I can tell you that Beck's new album "Morning Phase" has excellent sound. And I've only got the regular LP. It's available on 180 gram audiophile vinyl. Also Robert Plant and Allison Krauss" Raising Sand" has excellent sound. And Paul Simon "There goes Rymin Simon" has excellent sound. I also found an original pressing of "Ringo" on a rack in a record store which was brand new,never been opened. My theory is that digital masters have higher resolution than a consumer CD, so maybe vinyl pressed from them also sounds better.