Frequently marketing and content stickers will refer to “master tapes”, “original analog tapes” etc. This refers to the ¼” or ½” tape that an album was mixed down to during recording. This is the master, from which safety tape copies are sometimes made. The master tapes are considered to be the purest example of a recording and in most cases closest to what the artist heard and or desired while making the album.

For audiophile quality releases, it is usually essential that the master tapes are used in cutting. In fact, many re issue record labels will refuse to re issue an album on 180 gram and call it audiophile if the master tapes can not be found, or are found to be unusable.