Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

Lacee makes a very important point. Any musician would agree that we would rather listen to a poor recording of one of our favorite musicians than an excellent one of someone mediocre. While I appreciate that a great many people in this hobby are into it mainly for the toys and the science of it, IMO they are often missing the forest for the trees.

Since you mentioned hospital lighting,the next time you go in for an operation, ask them to do the job by candle lite ,because it makes you feel more comfortable.

I would agree that most audio systems reveal certain aspects of the truth,so it can be said that the most revealing systems should be the most truthful?
I think they are.

Where you want to stop is your choice,as I stated, most people have only heard a fraction of the musical detail that is on the recordings thay have purchased.

And that's just not because they aren't chasing the latest class A components.

It's mostly because they have failed to optimize the system that they have that is the reason why they are being robbed of all of the music.They don't sweat the details, or go the extra mile to properly set up the system, and fail to optimize the power, the room and place the gear on proper stands.
I never felt a stand was anything but a stand until I got my Grand Prix audio rack.
Again, everything matters,you get back what you put in.

Hey I can enjoy music on modest system,because I enjoy the music.
Put that music on an even beytter system and I enjoy it even more.

My first system was a humble all in one TV, radio, record player built into a console purchased in the early 50's by my parents,mono only.

Then I was introduced to a friend's system of separates in the early 1970's and when I heard for the first time background vocals and instruments on my lps,things I never knew were there, I was hooked.

This is why I can't go back.
The old system did it's job of playing music ,it made me want to listen and I could learn the bass parts,but oh my, I was missing so much more.

The added information added to my enjoyment.

This is what intrigues me.

People have embraced High Def TV,and I doubt would ever want to go back to old black and white tv of 1970's quality, yet they long for that old sound of the hifi gear from that era.

So what's so evil about a high def audio system?
Why are the folks who have such systems named "gear heads" and those who don't are called " music lovers"?

Why is one group reviled and the other revered?

Aren't they listening to the same thing, music?

I think the reason for the outbursts of anger for the newer more resolving gear is a backlash at the cost of entry for such systems.

Or it's nostalgia, and that has nothing to do with the music per se, we can be nostalgic about anything at any time in history.Go listen to Archie Bunkers lament about the good old days.

The past will always be golden, the big firsts in our lives can never be duplicated.Remembered, but never duplicated.

70's music played back thru 70's gear may bring back golden memories and warm and fuzzy feelings, but they won't bring back the hair you've either lost or that's turned grey.

It's memories and memories are great and can be relived,but why relive them at the level you did way back then?

When I go back and play some of my music from my youth,I am amazed at how some of those recordings stack up to the best of todays recordings.
And that is from a musical point of view.

Most of the new music of today I find very derivative.
And that's not a bad thing.
Rock and roll is a captive of it's own making.There's only so much you can do within the confines of the style of the music.
And yet it has continued to flourish and never went away as they said it would in the 50's.

Listening to some of my early Chet Atkins lps in mono through the Steelhead reveal how really well recorded those simply recorded lps were.

The music is fresh and lifelike, even thought the style is dated,the muscianship and the sound of the lp is much better than when I used to listen to it back in the day on the old folk's system.

There's no going back for me.

"Since you mentioned hospital lighting,the next time you go in for an operation, ask them to do the job by candle lite ,because it makes you feel more comfortable.”

Thank you for making my point. Your interest seems to focus on the science of reproducing sound. Notice that I didn’t say music, I said sound. And that’s fine. But not for me. I can’t prove what I believe - that music has a substance and appeal that goes beyond what our cognitive mind can even hear. But take all the sound measurements you want of a piece of music, and I’ll bet that those measurements can be duplicated non-musically.

Only a fool believes that the more facts he has, the closer to the truth he is.
And I would suggest the same relation holds between details and music. Music is more that a collection of details. And I’ll go even further and say that, IMO, it is possible for details to actually lead away from the musical truth.

There is no rationality to our enjoyment of music. It’s appeal has nothing to do logic or reasoning. But those are exactly the tools that some of us insist on using in order to determine musicality. I think it’s fair to ask: When does sound become music? When I was 9 years old, I began taking trumpet lessons. My family and neighbors would take great issue with anyone who suggested that the product was ever musical.

Phaelon, as you may be aware, many modern composers in fact believe that all noise, even silence, is music. John Cage being the primary exponent of the theory. Nice post, by the way.

“...even silence, is music."

Hey! That’s what my neighbors used to say :-)