From “How a Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire” by Geoff Edgers, The Washington Post, August 5, 2022:

“These people who claim they have golden ears and can hear the difference between analog and digital, well, it turns out you couldn’t.”

I love music but I’ve never been an analog fetishist. In the vast majority of listening situations, most people — even “audiophiles” — simply can’t tell the difference between analog and digital. There’s just too many variables involved along the entire chain of sound production and transmission for the analog/digital issue to be noticable.

I very much appreciate the physical medium of vinyl and as a Gen Xer, playing a record is a pleasantly nostalgic activity. But I’d never claim that vinyl sounds better than digital — at least not on any equipment I’ve ever been able to afford.