digital vs vinyl thoughts

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

Agree with Almarg.

The intent of the "sampling" with digital audio is to sample in a manner that does capture all the relevant information. How well any particular digital format like redbook CD actually accomplishes this in practice is debatable but the intent is to quantify the analog signal sufficently to capture all the relevant information present.

Sampling, or digital quantification of an analog signal in digital signal processing is apples and pranges different than sampling in statistical theory where a relatively small representative sample is used to statistically represent a population as a whole.

I think the overloading of the term "sampling" and how it is different in the context of digital signal processing theory compared to statistical theory is a cause of misunderstanding and confusion in many cases.

Al, I couldn't agree more. As I've said before, I have yet to hear the consistent superiority of one format over the other.

Unsound, I absolutely agreement with you. Tmsorosk, "mombo jumbo"? where is this animosity coming from? I was stating basic Electrical Engineering. Nothing else. I never said that you or anyone else wouldn't like their digital system's sound. I certainly like mine. But, before you attack me, which I can't understand why you are doing so, please re-read my post. no way on this planet is a digital signal that has been sampled over an analog signal as accurate as an analog signal. That is all I said. So, there will be some inherent data losses in digital taken from analog. Digital to digital sampling has no losses because it goes back and checks each bit with the original digital signal. This can't happen with digital sampled from analog. However, what I did say is that if you up the sampling rate and also up the playback sampling rate to match, you can get close. But never 100%. But, mombo jumbo? Sorry, it definitely isn't. it is called Engineering and the theories behind it, and that is exactly what any electrical system's designer must know before they can design and build anything. This isn't a religious battle between digital vs vinyl. So, stay calm