A very good ENGINEERING explanation of why analog can not be as good as digital..

Actually you can find an explanation somewhere for whatever you want. Analog is more accurate than digital, digital is more accurate than analog. What have you. But this all overlooks the many serious problems in digital playback systems, not to mention the horrendous dynamic range compression that has been going on for the last twenty years. Maybe things will be different some day. Sigh!

Of course, sound quality notwithstanding, the sheer joy in finding old collections of records, cleaning the promising ones with my ultrasonic RCM, and cueing them up is often just so amazing. 

As kind of a known audio-guy and owner of a busy bakery/cafe, sometimes customers will just give me their old record collection. If I was a digital only guy, due to digital’s better specs, I’d never have discovered so much obscure music. I challenge anyone to find “The Sounds of the Loon” in any digital format. But the 45 or so minutes of this old monophonic record were a delight. The narrator explained all about the behavior of the Loon with lots of really well recorded audio. 

So so the debate for me is moot. I love it all.

~Oran

I understand BOTH formats have their strengths and weaknesses.  That was not the purpose of the discussion.  Maybe I miswrote the headline.

It was meant to be read by people who CLAIM that vinyl is ALWAYS better then digital.  And to that, I say NO WAY.

@stevecham 
who cares if the cutting head has to make a continuous path, if the the information contained in that path is from a discontnous waveform?  Vinylistas are reacting to some byproduct  of the whole vinyl reproduction chain that they identify as pleasurable, and the rest of us hear as artifactual or distortion.
  Vinylistas always are clamoring for digital systems that sound “analog like”.
Before I sold off my analog system, I tried to make it sound as non analog as possible.  I had a battery powered pre amp because it was quieter with darker backgrounds and I was fanatic about trying to improve speed stability, reduce surface noise, wow, flutter, you name it.  Eventually I decided this is crazy and will go 100% digital.