The muddy waters of Analogue vs. digital today

There were several posts recently discussing sound quality differences between streaming vs analog. I know the topic cane up numerous times on these forums but I find it interesting that we are seeing these discussions more frequently now with audiophiles preferring the sound of vinyl and I was thinking what could possibly be the reason why. 
Here are some of the driving factors I can think of:

1. Differences in levels of components - vinyl setup is a few notches above in quality compared to digital front ends in some systems 

2. Streaming services that feature high resolution remastered albums that in a lot of cases unfortunately sound inferior to the originals. We all have our favorite recordings and most have been released either way before streaming was around and were recorded in pure analog. Or the albums that were recorded digitally and are now remastered with lower sound quality 

3. Streaming changed our listening habits - we became impatient, we skip thru songs, we’re unable to enjoy the entire album because it’s too convenient to jump to the next selection and so we don’t allow ourselves to get into the music. 
4. we compile playlists consisting of music that we may not particularly enjoy but play over and over because the recording quality is outstanding and makes our systems shine.

5. The tone and the overall sonic characteristics of vinyl records is more to our liking than the super clean, and at times sterile and anemic delivery of music by the digital components and streaming itself. Lack of musical engagement in listeners  

6. Selection of new releases made available on very high quality vinyl mastered in full analog with a catalog big enough for most of us to purchase our favorite music that sounds amazing on the high quality playback equipment in our systems. And finally the 

7. Ritual of playing a vinyl record that requires involvement (cleaning the record, making sure everything is perfect, cleaning the stylus and dropping the needle.
Physically handling the album covers with cool artwork and liner notes is an added bonus. 
 

In addition, playing albums you purchased when you were young that trigger certain memories, a kind of a throwback we all enjoy. This part is almost completely missing with streaming. 
 

That’s my theory. I’m sure I missed a few aspects that others can add. And I may completely be off track here. Oh and most of whatbI described applies to playing our CD collection. 

@audio-b-dog 

"In regards to chatgpt, it is true that if you ask it a subjective question you will get a subjective answer that it thinks you want to hear. But when I ask it about the quality of a recording it is fairly amazing. It will not only tell you about whether a recording is taken from an analogue or digital source, it wil tell you about the engineers and where the album was pressed. It will give you a ton of information. Just try it. Ask about an album you wonder about or about an album you'd like to buy. I asked about "My Favorite Things" from "Selflessness" being tipped up in the treble range. It told me that the recording was live and where it was recorded and where the mikes were placed and who engineered the recording. More than I really wanted to know."

Discogs has been doing this for decades now and list every remastering that's been done since a recording's first release no matter how old it is. Only requires your literary and basic computer skills to search out anything you want to know.

Do you really think that a digital version of an analog recording is going to have anything in common with an all analog version of it? Nothing about the mastering process is going to be the same though the producers of the digital reissue may strive to achieve a listening experience that the music buying public is accustomed to, a comparison just isn't fair in any way.

As for digital playback as in the case of CD or SACD it's only as good as the equipment you play it back on irrespective of how much you spend on your digital front end since a properly chosen CD/SACD player, transport, DAC and considering the system it's going to be matched to can yield outstanding results.

In my opinion there has never been anything wrong with the 16-bit format only it's implementation on certain recordings or remasters and for the most part I find it as enjoyable as SACD or even vinyl though I'm inexorably attracted to the tactility of vinyl for which I have the most titles and spend most of my time listening to given the choice.

I don’t really get the agonizing about analog vs digital any more.  It’s unreasonable to make it an either or context.  Both can produce excellent results if done well.  Some digital remasters of analog recordings aren’t as good as the original, but the reverse is certainly true as well.  It’s reasonable to have the capability to play both and make your decision on a case by case basis

@mahler123 I don’t know if anyone’s agonizing over it here. I’m definitely enjoying both formats. I’m really excited about the fact that more pure analog vinyl is being produced right now than even a year or two ago. I also hate the limited/numbered editions. But thankfully in some cases when the numbered editions ate sold out they still want to continue to make money and keep producing these records as regular versions. Some of these are killer sounding albums. So yeah I actually think now is a good time to get back into vinyl. 

Twenty years ago I bought an Ayre C-5xe and decided that I had found the one. But now I have to face up to the fact it is going to fail one of these days, so in preparation I got out a couple of older players and they have shocked me as to how good they sound! A 34 year old Meridian 206b (the bitstream version) and a 27 year old Sony SCD-1 (which now declines to play SACDs but plays CDs happily). If I didn’t have so many SACDs I could live with either, but when the Ayre dies I shall have to find some way of playing those SACDs. I’m hoping tech advances have trickled down into players like the Marantz 30n. All my attention the last twenty years has been directed at vinyl replay, so I have ignored streaming, and separate transports and DACS (though I did have a Counterpoint DA-11.5 and DA-10 way back when (~1995)). I shall just need a CD/SACD one box player that sounds as good as the Ayre.