Question About Possibly Higher Audio Quality

So, I'm something of an audiophile, but not enough of one to answer this question on my own. Others, feel free to chime in.

According to Fantasia's Wikipedia article...

...Link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_%281940_film%29 ...

...in 1955, the original sound negative (which had begun to deteriorate) was transferred via telephone wires onto magnetic tape. All subsequent audio remixes, remasters, and re-releases have been based on that, rather than the original sound negative.

So, my question is this--if the original negative had been preserved, would it have been possible to repair, restore, remaster, and upgrade the audio quality of Fantasia's soundtrack to an even higher audio quality than it's available in today? I ask because I was under the impression that magnetic tape is an inherently worse (though not necessarily terrible)-sounding source of audio than an audio's original negative recording.

That's assuming, of course, that I understand things correctly, which I may not. But had the original negative been preserved, rather than transferred onto magnetic tape, might it have been possible to get even better audio quality out of Fantasia's soundtrack?

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