How Good Can Digital Get?

In some respects digital will never be as good as analog and in some respects analog will never be as good as digital.
Unless the sample rate approaches infinty analog will always hold more information. For volume resolution
cd's 16bit allows for 65536 discreet steps (24bit about 2.5million) analog allows all the steps in between as well. So in information content digital is seriously flawed. But when it comes to noise levels and channel separation digital will always be better than a mechanical or electrical (ie analog) system.
So if you can hear (not everybody can, just look at all the people who cannot hear the difference between cd and mp3) and don't mind the noise go analog, if you can't or you like the convenience go digital.
I use both but wish digital would go to 24bit 96kHz or better yet 24bit 192kHz so I don't have to keep turning the treble down. Theres nothing worse than the treble that comes out of a (well any) cdp. But having heard a 192kHz system I know it doesn't have to be like this.
But since the general public seems to be happy with mp3's I don't hold much hope for the future and I keep buying cd's if I can't get it on vinyl after all its the music that counts, not the format it appears in. Much rather listen to good music on a bad system than bad music on a good system!

I would hazard a guess that about 50% of the audio world is about enjoying music and sharing the path to that enjoyment with others.

But, humans have an inherrent need to self-actualize. The dark side of this is the need to feel superior to others. Thus, humans have a tendancy to form cliques, clubs, and secret societies -- all for the purpose of feeling, "special."

Sadly, audio enthusiasm is often an outlet for this same sort of impulse.

Thus, the audiophile world can be somewhat like a secret society. Like all such societies, there are rituals, slogans, and beliefs one must profess in order to maintain membership.

Slogans like, "digital can never sound as good as vinyl" and "solid state can never sound as good as tubes" all the way to "my amplifiers sound better on maple platforms than on mahogany" and "silver sounds better than copper."

Part of it is just the old schoolyard taunt brought to a new medium, "my auditory prowess is bigger than yours" or "my ears are better than yours."

There is an audiophile who roams these forums who has a megabuck vinyl rig. He told me on the phone that his Emm Labs equipment sounds better than his vinyl rig and that if he were just getting into audio today, he would bypass vinyl altogether.

But, I see him on these forums and when the discussion turns to vinyl versus digital, he murmers the slogan, saying something like, "Emm Labs gets me about 60% of the way to vinyl and that's a revolution in digital, much better than anything before it."

Excellent way to split the apple and still belong.

It is sad. The guy can't admit in public that he likes his digital gear better. Why? My guess he doesn't want to risk his membership.

Another aspect is that in any hobby, there is a fine line between enjoying the hobby as a diversion and using the hobby as an obsessive/compulsive ritual.

Vinyl, with its attendant fears and rituals, and demands for dust fighting, record cleaning, tone-arm tweaking, and vinyl preserving is tailor made for the obsessive/compulsive.

What's my point? My point is that often this hobby is about enjoying music and sharing the path to that enjoyment with others, but just as often it about something else, having nothing to do with music.

Rsbeck - very well put. you articulated my sentiments better than i could. and a fun little anecdote, btw.