Quote:Actually it wouldn't.  Any form of sampling (which digitizing is) necessarily leaves out information.  Therefor, when digitized music is replayed those missing parts are "guessed" by the DAC (the computer chip responsible for turning the digital information back into an audio signal) so the result is by definition an approximation of the original signal.  For standard CDs (and especially MP3 or AAC formats) this is audible.  In practice the results are a sound that has a harshness that is sometimes referred to as "sizzle".  In addition, the stereo channels are frequently mixed down into a hybrid stereo/mono mix to save space which can make the playback sound muddy.  In some digital formats, this effect is greatly reduced, in particular some of the Blue Ray audio formats and an older format, SACD which comes close to the warmth and sound stage you can get with vinyl recordings.

 

A lot of what you are describing is the result of a digital format not having enough bandwidth to accurately reproduce the input signal.  Of course, it's an approximation.  But there's no guessing involved, the missing parts are just skipped (or blurred).  But digital has infinite bandwidth.  If you want to reproduce a sound to the point where it's indistinguishable, in the digital world, you increase the bitrate to the point where the sound is indistinguishable from the analog signal.  The old standarnd 128kbs (i think) mp3s definitely had severe sound artifacts even compared to standard CDs.   CDs were way better at representing analog sounds (probably to the point where I wouldn't notice a different).   Then the common streaming formats we use right now are likely better than CDs at this point if I'm guessing.   But it's all about how much data you use to represent the signal and how good or nonexistent the format compression is, and how much digital bandwidth the human ear (which we already know has its limitations) can actually decipher. I'm sure people have maxed this out at least with lossless formats like WAV or FLAC or whatever.   But yes, if you're talking about specific formats that people commonly use, you could be right (even though I doubt I personally would notice a difference).  My whole point is that digitizing something at the right bandwidth could reproduce vinyl to the point where there is no human difference.      

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