The problem is the sound quality that made in the industry these days is so bad , if it was ported onto a hi-res format it would show how bad it really was. you wouldn't buy it . The music studios have literally got to start from senior management level and force changes in the industry to make it viable.
Its the reason why its mosty older albums that get released. With the odd exception due to the fact the sound engineers knew what they were doing.
What on earth gives you this impression?
It's pretty hard to make something sound 'bad' these days with the rise of pro-sumer technology. At home with a half decent mic, soundcard and computer it's possible to record something in a way that you wouldn't have been able to dream of 20-30 years ago. It's for this reason many of the bigger studio complexes are struggling to stay afloat!
The reason why high resolution audio isn't popular is primarily down to:
1) Size/cost/quality ratio
2) Actual need for it
With regards to point 1, music these days is consumed in a very different way - where as in the past it was listened to with 'intent' (think hifi's of the 70's and 80's), these days it's much more of a background activity whilst doing something else. As such, the outright quality isn't the be all end all. Given the choice of having 10 high quality tracks to listen to versus 100 slightly lower quality tracks, I'm willing to bet most people would go for quantity over quality. People generally don't spend that much money on playback systems compared to years gone by, so again the source material isn't as important since the playback kit won't highlight the compression artifacts etc in the same way.
That said, the source material in the main is being recorded, produced and mastered in much the same way as it always has, there's just been a move towards crushed dynamics with certain styles of music. This is beginning to end though - we're starting to see greater dynamic range in quite a few albums. Daft Punk's latest is a good example.
Point 2 - as discussed elsewhere there simply isn't a need for 96/24 unless you're recording audio. It offers NO BENEFIT whatsoever to a listener. There's a bit of a misconception with understanding how digital audio works. In order to visualise the A>D process, more often than not a 'staircase' is shown using samples, and the higher the sample rate the 'finer' the staircase is. Unfortunately this is very misleading.
http://www.xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml
Have a watch of this video, it's a brilliant explanation of how digital audio actually works in the real world, and although it goes on to some other things (dither etc) which aren't that relevant for a listener, hopefully the first part will put into perspective why 24 bits aren't actually that useful if you're just a listener.
Done properly 24/96 will beat cd all day long.
