Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

Digital format is more likely to be consistent ( accurate?) from source to source rather than Analog. Each TT sounds different- mere change in settings. clamp force changes the sound drastically -questioning which one is truer.

Digital is but a sample of the sound.
Analog is the entire sound.

Out of curiosity, what was the analog set-up that you had to compare to the high dollar digital playback?

The analog setup was a re-tipped Grasshopper 2, mounted on a Triplanar arm which was in turn on a Kuzma Stabi Reference. The arm was set up with a balanced connection driving the balanced phono section of the Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp.

The difference between that and the Staltek system (easily the best digital I have heard so far, regardless of the digital source file) was readily audible as an increased smoothness and level of detail on the part of the LP. For the most part ticks and pops did not give away the vinyl either; if things are set up correctly the vinyl rig will not enhance ticks and pops (although it is my opinion that so many rigs do have troubles with this; thus one important reason that digital has done as well as it has).

Analog might(?) be the entire sound, and then some. That entire sound is often masked by extraneous noise.

i figure analog is seeing as how digital is a sampled representation.

sampling (digital) can be accurate but it's inherently less complete. there are gaps.

Digital is but a sample of the sound. Analog is the entire sound.

Although these statements reflect a commonly held position, as I see it they amount to assertions that because digital does not have an infinitely high sample rate, and an infinite number of bits per sample, it is inherently inferior to analog.

As I see it, given that analog has many shortcomings of its own, and given the fact that our hearing mechanisms are not infinitely resolving, there must be some finite value of those parameters which will, when implemented in well designed hardware, inarguably result in digital being the superior format. Whether or not that point has already been reached, or is foreseeable, is debatable. But I don't think the fact that digital is a sampled format in itself has much if any relevance to that debate.

Regards,
-- Al