Has anyone been able to define well or measure differences between vinyl and digital?

If there is any interest, this is probably the best single article I have discovered that explains digital audio. It is not light reading nor heavy reading. Dan, who put it together obviously put a lot of time into it. It is almost 20 years old so comments about processing power are no longer relevant, but everything else is. I have come across many articles on digital audio written by less technical people. They get the basics right, but they often make mistakes and they never go into the depth that this article provides. You may need to read it 2 or 3 times to understand well enough, but if you do, it will dispel a lot of misconceptions about digital audio.

https://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf

If you have any questions about the article I will try to answer them.

This video provides an excellent explanation and actual demonstration of how digital audio works, and how it doesn't.

Thanks for the extensive explanations of digital audio and references @thespeakerdude

Can we now summarize (are we there yet?) and identify general principles that help shape the differences between these two formats. I’m not interested in which one is better, as judgments are too system and context as well as music and preferences dependent.

Rather, can we draw conclusions about their differences that are more or less general or specific conclusions (about dynamics, freq range, noise and noise floor, PRAT, mid or high freq airiness and so on or our hearing preferences, sensitivities and limits) that shed light on common experiences?

I just watched Paul at PS Audio say how what MOFI was doing recording using DSD was in his view the right way to record and preserve masters in digital and then transfer onto vinyl for playback. Is vinyl playback giving anything different to digital playback from the same master copy?

[MOFI Marketing representations aside. I don’t want to touch the Marcoms involved here in this discussion.]

we are wired to appreciate sound based on our memories of the sound we grew up on.

It may be what resembles it, perfects it or what the total opposite is but in either case, it's still our baseline. Most of the characteristics is in our head: what it evokes, what we think it is vs. what it does sound like.

To me vinyl is raw, unfiltered, imperfect, "authentic" which translates to dynamic, lively, bold  and  forward. The key is that I like that sound. 

Digital (unless tweaked) goes for the opposite: neutral and processed. For a lot of productions, I prefer that, e.g. when the recording was a mess, tiring after a few seconds, I need the digital fix.

Hello.

All this discussing seems for me to be based on terrifficness.

You got a couple of ears, usually.

That is the source to measure with. And if your ears prefer digital, thats ok. Same with analog.

So, in my opinion, humble or not, your ears are your guidance.

My ears are my only reference.

I also wonder when people are going to start lisening to the performance of the music, whether analog or digital.

Regards,

Zappasan