Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
I have read in another article that indeed it was set at 44.1k purely so that 74 mins could be recorded onto CD. 88.2 k would have resulted theoretically in a much higher quality recording.
Go back to the early 1980s, and 44.1 kHz sample rate was bleeding edge technology - 88.2 kHz was not possible.
The earliest digital studio recorders were working at 16 bit, 50 kHz.