Everything Matters With Digital

I like learning the engineering level, but logic alone will lead you to conclude that digital will always introduce loss, unless and until science is able to measure, deconstruct and reconstruct EVERY characteristic that causes us to experience (not just hear) music. There's clearly more to the analog content than the waveform, let alone the density of its deconstruction and the precision of its reconstruction. If this weren't true then the makers of the better audio equipment wouldn't all use listening tests as a primary driver in design choices.

Of course everything matters.  If it were just 0s and 1s all digital would sound exactly the same and be a perfect reproduction of the original performance.
This is very far from the truth.
There are far more variables and unknowables in digital than in analogue and issues that will never be resolved.

The main things that matter in digital are the source files the ADC that converts and  the DAC that converts. If your DAC isn't up to modern specs in regard to isolation, filtering and reconstruction then these other superfluous items can make a difference  but if everything between works to spec it's not that important. Consider how much time and money you have invested in your internet modem the device that reconstructs the analog to digital signal. So yes everything matters some more so than others. 

djones51

... Consider how much time and money you have invested in your internet modem the device that reconstructs the analog to digital signal ...

Huh? What kind of ISP are you using? My modem doesn't "reconstruct" analog to digital. It's digital in and digital out.

IMO, the only thing that matters in digital is what you can hear.