OK, the fist DAT recordings were crap. To bear witness to that, try listening to an original pressing of Springsteen's "The River". It's tinny in the extreme, bordering on the unlistenable. Still, I don't know as the band pass of those early recorders was limited in any way. In fact, I've seen frequency response specs something on the order of "2 to 200Khz". Who knows if they were lying. The magnification of force at the tip of the stylus is very real, as well as several other deficiencies wrought by tone arm geometry, resonance, and compliance.
In any event, when I was a boy in 5th grade, I went to the Franklin Institute. The primary attraction at the time was "Univac'. (I think it was "Univac" and "Eniac" was the earlier model, obviously IIRC). So the vacuum tube computer had to be in an air conditioned, completely dust free environment, and "all" it's operators were dressed in pristine white lab coats. As I sit in a semi-modern digital setting, (3 feet in front of a dusty clay litter filled can pan), I'm musing how vinyl records would fare in this context. I fear not well. Yet my CD player, and computer, seen perfectly content. (Although I would swear the clay dust has roughed up the platter bearings in my 750GB WD "Black").
So vinyl, without regard to quality of reproduction, simply doesn't have the stamina to cope with anything other than "clean room conditions". I can't possibly picture accidentally leaving record on a platter here, even if it was just for a nap.
As far as Dire Straits, "Dire Straits" goes, I've always considered it, (very slightly), under recorded, no offense intended. Perhaps, I'm a crass member of "The Marching Morons", for saying so, I'm not sure. But, that is a deficiency of vinyl. If you don't want to use compression, you sacrifice dynamic range. Which is incidentally the factor which screams "this is a recording", while the music is playing on the PA before the actual band gets there.
As far as remastering goes, the personality and taste of the individual doing the job, heavily inflicts itself on the result. I have one "remastered" CD, which is mostly bass. I don't know if the story is true, but someone I know claimed the bass player was the culprit who did the transfer to CD. (Take that FWIW) (It might have been Bowie's "All the Madmen:", not sure at this stage).
An interesting factor of the "lousy sound of DVDs", is the fact some players supply a "night setting" for the sound. This is compression, so the dialog is as loud as the explosions, and those who aren't watching the movie at 3:00AM, get to sleep through it. Throughout the years, people have tried every trick in the book to overcome the limited dynamic range of records, up to and including, expanders on the output.
So, my argument at its most basic is simply this, proponents of analog audio, willfully overlook, (and deny), its multiplicity of shortcomings, to extend the narrative that digital sound is somehow evil. (For want of a better descriptor).
Something to do for laughs: A/B "Sultans of Swing", with "Tunnel of Love" (from Making Movies).
Both songs are in the same key, (Dm). I would be very interested in hearing you take on the recording. I will say "Sultans of Swing" is extremely clean, but"Tunnel of Love" always seemed punchier. ATM, I'm getting the reverse effect, using lossless WAV files, taken from CD remasters...