digital vs vinyl thoughts

Add to that some analog info can in fact be missing - a scratch on the LP for example.

I'm not bashning analog at all; please see my previous posts.

Unsound, another way to say what Minor1 is saying is that surface noise is just that - on the surface, and can be listened through to the music. Digital distortions are more seriously disruptive to the sound of the music itself than analog distortions (even though there usually are more distortions in analog). Part of this is that typical analog distortions occur at much lower frequencies than in digital, where they are at higher and therefore more annoyingly disruptive frequencies. Digital always sounds less "real" for this reason, especially if we are talking about unamplified, acoustically produced music (mainly classical and jazz). Electronically produced music does not suffer nearly so much from digital reproduction, so if you are only into rock, it's not that big a difference between the two. And far too often, excessive amplification ruins acoustic timbres anyway. One of the most frustrating aspects of my job is playing a pops show where the "sound guys" mike the hell out of everything and then set up a bunch of monitors blasting all around the stage, trying to solve the problem that no one can hear each other by making it even louder. And this occurs all the time in the very finest halls in the world. Sigh. But I digress. The other much more controversial point is that many audiophiles don't actually listen beyond the surface of the music, even if they do have good hearing. Just because one has good hearing does not necessarily mean that one actually trains and uses their ears to hear and understand music well.

"Digital always sounds less "real" for this reason"

An absolute statement that is simply not true in my experience.

Digital often sounds more real to me.

Just my opinion....

Learsfool, thank you for your thoughtful response. I respectfully disagree with your assessment re: analog and digital.
On the other hand , I couldn't agree more with you regarding the over amplification of music at live venues. In fact, I would go so far as to say, at many live venues any amplification is irritatingly superfluous. Unfortunately too many modern musicians use it as a crutch to hide the fact that they haven't properly developed their chops or listening skills.

IMO the fact that digital is sampled is not in itself a persuasive argument in favor of vinyl. I think that most people, especially those with an understanding of sampling theory and digital signal processing, would agree that there must be SOME sample rate, and SOME finite number of bits per sample, which when implemented in well designed hardware in both the recording and playback parts of the chain, would result in digital inarguably being the better format.

Whether or not that point has been reached, or is foreseeable, or is even technologically possible, is of course debatable. But the obvious bottom line would seem to be that for each listener the proof is in the pudding (or more specifically, in the listening). Personally I enjoy both formats, and I find that the differences between formats are generally greatly overshadowed by the differences in the quality of the engineering and mic'ing of the particular recordings.

Regards,
-- Al