A very good ENGINEERING explanation of why analog can not be as good as digital..

I strongly urge those interested to read,  "Why Hasn't Everything Disappeared Already?" by Jean Baudrillard.  A long time philosophical critic of the 'screen' and the digital/visual  nexus, Baudrillard presents a rich approach to understanding the "analogue" through photography and digital visual recording as the death of the real.  It all applies to analogue music and vinyl reproduction. In fact he styles the death of the analogue as "murder". 
I too was insulted being told what I can and cannot hear.  I have two separate systems with cd players and turntables, 1 Rega 6 w/ Ortophon Bronze and 1 late 1970s Thorens in great shape and with the same new cartridge.  I can not only tell the differrence between playbacks I can tell the difference between the 2 systems.  The 2 cd players do not sound the same!  Neither do the turntables.  And in all 'systems' there are many links and each one can determine the final quality of sound.  Dave Brubeck's Take Five album in 180gs is awesome and the high end on the second cut on the first side rings out with the sweetest percussion no digital player can possible match.
If I suffer from notalgia, it is with joy and sorrow.  Sorrow that music is murdered digitally and joy that I am lucky enough to know the difference.  There is nothing wrong with missing something that is very good.  The cd is still good on cleaning day when I run the vacuum.

Analogue is a 'real' copy of the sound impressions where Digital is merely coded ones and zeros read by a machine and sound is produced in the process.  There is no 'there' there with digital.  There are NO sonic impressions.  Just a digital program reading directions in binary code.  Zappa's Jazz From Hell album is a good example.  Brilliant and performed without any musicians.  Cold,. hard and exact.  But even that album becomes musical when the vinyl copy is played next to the digital. 

Flat-earthers indeed!  To those who prefer musicians to machines as music makers I think the analogue/digital divide needs to be judged by our ears, not another machine.  Those with the sensitivities to hear music will make the same choices and judgements and do not need to have a machine tell them what and how to 'hear'.  As Captain Beefheart put it, "How'd you get a name like Crazy Little Thing?"