Timbre exists, or accurately the relationship between the various harmonics and their attack and decay. However, the properties that mahgister attempts to assign don’t exist. His failure to understand the underlying mathematical composition of signals and hence why digital is able to capture anything that can be called "timbre" in far greater accuracy than any current analog equipment, causes him to assign "ethereal" properties, that do not exist.I NEVER affirm in this thread that analog can do something superior to digital, only different...I never affirm also that digital cannot do what analog do for the timbre perception... Then dont put in my mouth what others speak about but not me...
And the adjective analog or digital must be associated with many things that will intermix digital and analog qualities for example a vinyl digitalized read by a dac that will retranslate it, but also the vinyl that will play digitally masters vinyl, or digital cd playing a tube only audio system, the list is way greater of all possibilities etc...
In my first point in my discussion with you i only put the fact that the perception of timbre is acoustically conditioned BY THE ROOM where timbre is evaluated, be it by analog or digital audio.... And the electrical and mechanical embeddings of the digital or analog audio system and the acoustical embeddings of the system in the room will have more impact on the timbre perception than the choice of a format digital or vinyl whatever...
And no need of doctorate to know that the mathematical description of timbre by many mathematical descriptors is one of the most complex problem in acoustic linked to music, linguistics,neurology etc, then the engineering problem of the digitalization of any analog sources and the decoding of these digits to made them analog anew is ANOTHER problem tough linked to the first for sure....
My second point was only that digital cannot supersede analog phenomena completely, they are 2 linked faces of the sound phenomena in audio electronic, in the room and in the brain.... Like atoms which are particule and waves at the same time, sound is modulo Fourier analysis of time domain and frequencies particule like and wave like....
The " ethereal" properties you accuse me of associating with timbre perception are this subtle properties modified by an environment that constitute the fabric of instrumental music, and the fabric of phonology and phonetic complexities in all human languages... Assessing mathematically these subtle perceived properties with mathematical models are not a fad, but pretending like you that all these problems are answered once and for all, thanks to the mathematics of digital coding /decoding and filters, is simply confusing many problems and reducing them to one....
By the way these "ethereal" properties associated to the timbre perception are so real, that it will take neural networks and deep learning A.I. to appropriate them for recognizing purpose....Not only the Fourier analysis coding and decoding of digital tech.....The reason is simple: humans LEARN to perceive timbre....This learning process cannot be replace by digital codes only, the learning being associated with an acoustical environment....
Each format digital or analog has his advantages in audio perceived by some and not by others....Myself i think that digital is able to be on par with analog or vice versa with right choice of dac or turntable, but MOSTLY by a rightful triple embeddings of the system....
By the way when you speak of signal noise ratio dont forget that this concept and fact are not limited to electronical digital or audio component.... The signal noise ratio is also increased or decreased by the mechanical, electrical and acoustical embeddings of the audio system in a specific noisy electrical grid in a specific acoustically qualified room....The ears are also a measuring apparatus of signals/noise ratio....
This is WHY embeddings methods produce a greater impact on the listener than only the change of a turntable to a dac or vice versa....
Then my opinion being more subtle than what you caricature describe, i will be grateful to read it adequately put in your post....
By the way i dont doubt that you are more competent than me in audio, but that dont justify your rejection by the back of your hand of any other human experience because being illusory.... Audio it is my experience is more complex than we think....And some limited mathematics dont explain all sorry....
I just put my hand on this book :
They dont say that rigorous description of timbre by digital coding exhaust the subject matter at all...On the contrary ...They dont say either that only the microphones locations is enough to capture the butterfly of timbre in the net of digitalization engineering....😊 They seems to speak about this "ethereal" properties that the ears/brain of humans must learn to survive...
https://www.amazon.com/Timbre-Acoustics-Perception-Cognition-Springer/dp/3030148319