Digital audio formats

Recently I did an A-B comparison between vinyl and a CD made from vinyl. I had another listener present who was insistent that CD sound is "thinner" and "less warm" sounding. I judged the listener's ability to blindly distinguish one from the other as just about even with random chance. To my ears, I think I can hear that a 128 kilobyte sampling rate is not as good as 192 (which I use). Going to 256 is pretty much lost on my ears. There have always been and always will be purists, but when the entertainment center and the dishwasher are in the same living space and the laundry room is just down the hall, the audiophile is spitting into the wind. I like to think I get very listenable results from what I'm doing. I recognize that there are compromises I make, but I don't think that my sampling rate or file format is the weakest link in my audio reproduction chain. Ironically, I think the largest single distractor I encounter is what I'm now calling "vinyl patina". With store-bought CDs, this is a total non-issue but with vinyl or vinyl transcribed to CD, the inherent vulnerability of the vinyl is WAY more disconcerting to me than the "brittleness" or other alleged digital artifacts. The convenience of a jukebox-like ability to select music at the push of a button and the absence of record care ritual and the inevitable wear issues, more than offset the (to me) arguably audible differences in sound qualities.

I certainly enjoy the nostalgia and quaintly understandable technological concepts of "spinning vinyl" and "listening to some sides". But the practical reality is that I'm sold on my digital music capabilities and quite satisfied with the audio quality. For my money, what I have now is head and shoulders above any audio capability I've ever had in the past and possibly as good or better than the setup of anybody I know personally. Could it be better? Sure! Could we be getting to a point of diminishing returns? Absolutely.

Bear in mind that I say this as years of loud music and headphones and the simple passage of time has undoubtedly impaired my hearing. I think I probably have a touch of tinnitus as well. In closing, "How many angels can dance on the tip of a stylus?"