The data on a vinyl record is not digitized.
When reading (playing) from it to record it on a computer, you need to pass it through an ADC (analog-to-digital converter). Sometimes people set the ADC to 96 kHz sampling rate and 24 bits precision mode. That results in two channels of audio, so 2 x 96000 samples / sec x 24 bits / sample = 4608000 bits/s = 4608 kbps. So if you do that, you have essentially a digitized recording of what was on the vinyl. You could also read it at CD quality settings: 16 bits and 44.1 kHz sampling rate. (2 x 441100 x 16 = 1411.2 kbps) Or whatever else. 24-bit / 96 kHz seems to be somewhat popular among people who want to capture all the extra low-level, generally inaudible noise in higher precision.
Then compressing to FLAC doesn't change the data, just how it is stored (into a smaller format). It doesn't mean that FLAC files are perfect, but that any lossless compression produces a file that can be decoded exactly into what it was compressed from. So what's the quality of whatever the FLAC was encoded from?
FLAC supports different numbers of channels, sample rates, and bit depths, and the bitrate of any FLAC or some other file could be greater or less than something else. What's way higher compared to what?
Anyway, at these kinds of samples rates and bit depths, what we're talking about has little to do with sound quality. Sound quality has to do with the recording and mastering mostly.
