Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

Analog might(?) be the entire sound, and then some. That entire sound is often masked by extraneous noise.

i figure analog is seeing as how digital is a sampled representation.

sampling (digital) can be accurate but it's inherently less complete. there are gaps.

Digital is but a sample of the sound. Analog is the entire sound.

Although these statements reflect a commonly held position, as I see it they amount to assertions that because digital does not have an infinitely high sample rate, and an infinite number of bits per sample, it is inherently inferior to analog.

As I see it, given that analog has many shortcomings of its own, and given the fact that our hearing mechanisms are not infinitely resolving, there must be some finite value of those parameters which will, when implemented in well designed hardware, inarguably result in digital being the superior format. Whether or not that point has already been reached, or is foreseeable, is debatable. But I don't think the fact that digital is a sampled format in itself has much if any relevance to that debate.

Regards,
-- Al

Good debate by Al above.

I have always wondered: Does number of samples reduce as you go high in frequency range? I always read that there are only two samples at 20Khz say in redbook CD format. Does this mean that at 10 Khz there will be 4 or 5 khz 8 and so forth or is this not true. Meaning the sample 'saw tooth' profile get coarser at higher freqencies?

What happens to number of sample at this said freqencies when we consider high rez- 24/192 format or SACDs.

Nil, yes the number of samples (for each cycle of each frequency component of the analog signal that is being digitized) increases as you described, as the analog signal frequency decreases. Hi rez also increases the number of samples per cycle. For instance, a 192 kHz sample rate provides 192/44.1 = 4.35 times as many samples as redbook cd's 44.1 kHz sample rate.

However, what is often not recognized is that the problem with having a finite sample rate and a relatively limited number of samples of high frequency components in the signal is not "gaps," per se. In theory, if an infinitely long analog waveform is digitized using a sample rate that is at least twice the frequency of the highest frequency component of the analog signal, and if the number of bits per sample are high enough to reduce what is called "quantization noise" to insignificant levels, the digital data can be converted back to analog perfectly, with no loss of information in the "gaps."

Arguably the most significant theoretical issue, however, is that frequency components in the original analog signal that equal or exceed half the sample rate MUST be kept out of the a/d converter, or they will be reconstructed following d/a conversion as spurious lower frequencies (referred to as "alias frequencies"). Keeping those frequencies out of the a/d converter, while at the same time avoiding side-effects on audible frequencies, has historically been one of the most major technical challenges in digital. Hi rez formats certainly have a big advantage with that issue, all else being equal, as 96 and 192 kHz exceed twice the highest audible frequency (nominally 20 kHz x 2 = 40 kHz) by a far larger factor than redbook's 44.1 kHz.

Best regards,
-- Al

Al,
I used to argue that digital is a sampling of analogue but there are more fundamental issues. It is relatively easy to fill in the gaps using mathematical modelling.
The real issue with digital is the Red Book Standard and the use of sine x/x.
I'm sure you are aware the use of sine x/x means that all the calculations are truncated.
If they had used tan x for example the calculations would have yielded whole numbers and there would be no truncation errors.
My view is that digital is fundamentally flawed, not because of the concept, but due to the maths being incorrect and the way it has been implemented..
One of the biggest issues in developing digital product is that most audio engineers are engineers not mathematicians.