Is Digital actually better than Analog?

Musicaudio, in defense of Mike Lavigne, I really don't think there's anything negative about urging people to "have fun" ;--) Nor did I get the idea he was suggesting we not care what others think, only that he didn't anymore.

I believe your interest in learning more is genuine, but the most you will ever get from these forums are reports. Or maybe even reports of REPORTS! These are indeed valuable if they give you a direction to pursue, or and area you could investigate, but in the last analysis, actual learning can only result from your own first hand experiences and experiments (and BTW, there are no "bad" experiences, we learn something from all of them.)
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Up until a month ago I was a firm believer that analog vinyl was vastly superior to Redbook digital, but that was before I encountered HyperAnalog™. HypeA™ is actually a digital format and it takes vinyl playback beyond the proverbial next level to the next level raised to the power of 3. HypeA™ is still in its prototype stage, but I expect it to be picked up by one of the major manufacturers by the end of the decade.

In a nutshell HypeA™ starts with a vinyl record which is then "photographed" using a side scan, thermal activated, deep tissue with Aloe penetrating electron microscope (this is the same instrument physicists use to look at the bottoms of top quarks). The image is then analyzed by proprietary software and this is what make HypeA™ so special. The software synthesizes a virtual stylus that rides through the digitized record image and generates a virtual cartridge output. The software also performs the RIAA equalization and click and noise removal. The required computing horsepower is enormous, a typical recording takes 96 hours with file sizes greater than 69 petabytes, but the results are well worth it. Since the virtual stylus is not bound by physical constraints it can instantaneously response to the undulations of the groove walls. Playback distortion is completely eliminated. It sounds better than all known digital or analog formats and is virtually indistinguishable from real.

The HyperAnalog™ process came out of research originating in the Soviet Union that was later developed in Khazakstan with the assistance of Pakistan's AQ Khan and the North Koreans. It came to the U.S. via the brilliant mathematician/religious philosopher Sascha Moo Butane Stern. Always an enigma, Stern is best known here as the guitar tech/bus driver for Tim McGraw. Hopefully Stern will recover from his country music related mental illness and get back to bringing the HyperAnalog™ process to market.

Musicaudio; point taken. if i could remove the "who the hell cares' sentence i would. it's not 'like me' to post in that way.

i have posted likely a few hundred posts just here on the 'goN regarding this subject. if you are interested just search my answers and you can read what i have thought about this subject. my opinion is well known.

i hope you get the constructive feedback you seek.

No. They are just different formats. One is NOT superior to the other and you need both if you have any real interest in music.

Both formats have serious plus' and minus'. Which set you happen to prefer will more likely be the one that fits your personality best.

I happen to have a hard time overlooking all of the warts in vinyl play back (sonic's) and the fussiness involved, and love the simplicity of digital, BUT I have found it more difficult to set up a system that does justice to digital. You just need to tune your system to take advantage of the best that both have to offer, which is not and easy task by any means. IMHO, YMMV, etc etc etc.

I love the vinyl sound. In my opinion we hear in analog and vinyl never leaves that domain. I also love the convenience of CD's. I think it all comes down to how much you are willing to spend on either format in equipment to maximize playback quality. The only real pitfalls to vinyl is: no auto/remote playback. i.e. the ritual of cleaning and flipping over after 15-20 minuits can get old (for me), and the owrt is the fact that even new vinyl can have pops and clicks that are annoying. But once you listen through that I find that I can spend more time listening to vinyl than CD's with out ear fatigue. For some reason CD's just get to me after about 2 then I go do something else for a while. Probably just me.