digital vs vinyl thoughts

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

Learsfool; I like what you wrote.

Thanks,

Thanks Almarg; I wasn't arguing that because digital was sampled it is a more persuasive argument for vinly. Sorry, if I may have giving that impression. I was stating an engineering fact that to sample a signal at a specific sampling frequency absolutely means that some of the signal will simply not be there. Analog means that all of the signal is there. Of course there are distortions and benefits and negatives to vinly. RIAA has it's own issues. It has been cleaned up and sort of perfected over the many years, but.... What I meant was that if one takes a recording session with good acoustics, mikes, etc. and recording it using both digital and analog recording equipment, (decent equipment mind you), the digital recording will inherently be missing some data because it was sampled. But, as mentioned earlier, if the recording session is strickly digital instruments, or highly compressed music, then the digital recording will be fairly accurate and the analog recording will require a DAC just to get it recorded into analog. I appologize if I stepped on toes. Didn't mean to. Just stating Engineering facts.
enjoy anyway.