Is Digital actually better than Analog?

Quality music is alive. It's just underexposed, on small labels, and difficult to find amid the clutter.

HELL NO, DIGITAL SUCKS

Besides Zeal - If I were to say "Zeal..he's a joke" or "Digital sucks because you're too clueless to understand it" or "You show exactly why you made the comment you did everytime you speak" then I'm in the wrong because I have not contributed to the discussion topic.

Thank for understanding Zeal.

Zeal - No direspect intended. Please, kind sir. If your not gonna make a contribution to the thread, please refrain from making such statements.

Let me point this out, in case you haven't noticed, but your entire post did not answer the originally posted question.

"to me the 'better' or 'best' are improper to use toward art.....'prefer', 'more satisfying', 'more life-like to my ears', 'more involving'."

"i could care less about any subjective reasons"

This is where things take a turn for the grey area, because that mindset, anything goes. This is why audio is in the state of disarray its in today.

"Music is art"

Mike, music is art, very true! Music reproduction is not!! If I were fortunate enough to purchase the Mona Lisa, get this painting home, hang it on my wall and decide I don't think her smile is big enough...do I pull out the water color kit and make the smile bigger? Of course not! I'm not Picasso. He is the artist, not me. So why then would I classify the manipulation of the Mona Lisa as art? Now lets apply this to audio. If the intended recording artist purposely put in a little extra highs or edge in the recording, or kept everything smooth and melo, then why would I want to manipulate the intended recording to suite my taste. The extra highs are removed, manipulating the intended purpose of the highs, or the smoothness is imphasized, this manipulating the recording to be overly melo. Now...lets apply this to the topic at hand. Analog more times than not will manipulate the recording to fall or work within its perameters, or those set by the consumer not the artist. This is true because you can swop out parts to better suite your taste.

"my wife tells me they are better for me for some objective reasons."

Your wife is a wise woman. It wouldn't hurt to figure out those objective reasons either.

"the reasons i had sworn off getting involved in this subject again is that the whole need to find objective justifications why i like something gets in the way of the enjoyment and confuses what is important. why simply does not matter....TO ME."

Mike... the thread question was not posed directly to you, nor was it intended to be answered based on your feelings at the moment. Its not about you, its about whether digital is actually better than analog. In order to validate statements, be it for or against, you need some sort of reasoning behind your resolution. This is where subjectivity is dismissed.

"digital is a market driven product...and every new digital advance is market driven. the obvious ease of production and use of digital media and the economic force it causes are responsible for who buys what. performance audio issues drive vinyl.....and the maket for performance 2-channel audio is small (but feisty)."

Mike, I'm sorry but I will have to disagree again. Consumers don't buy CDs or vinyl for that matter because of market, ease of production or economics. They buy CD's because they want to or enjoy the artist they purchased. That being said, they want to hear what the artist has to offer on the CD, as the artist intended. Digital preserves that intent, without manipulation.