if you want to be pedantic record players are also digital because they can't represent anything tighter than an atom or the molecule of vinyl

Isn't everything digital to a point, since we can't ever measure anything smaller than the Planck length?

I'm on record saying heterodox things about the Nyquist theorem and SACD 1-bit DAC, so you are on topic. :)

In that case, since we are here and it's Friday and everyone needs to take it easy from time to time, here's my proof that we don't live in a simulation: according to [1], ray tracing is computationally undecidable. For example, say you are in a museum at night, and a light bulb turns on in a room on the third floor, is it still dark in some room on the first floor? This problem is undecidable using the axioms of geometric optics.

Of course, geometric optics is like real numbers, and the actual world is discrete: light is a finite collection of photons. So, you can do the simulation by simply emitting a number of photons from each light source and tracing them all the way until they are all absorbed. We can still live in a simulation, but one without algorithmic shortcuts, a simulation where you simulate every single photon.

Now, I'm sure you can come up with your own version of proof that we can't live in a simulation using Nyquist's theorem. If you do, and your Friday is not too busy, please share.

[1] https://users.cs.duke.edu/~reif/paper/tygar/raytracing.pdf

My audiophile friends would vehemently agree with this statement :)

People who vehemently agree that vinyl is better than digital audio are a big part of the reason "audiophile" is basically derogatory nowadays. Reasons being:

- Vinyl gets dust and scratches that degrade signal.

- Dragging a needle along a surface is an inconsistent and limited mechanism for signal transfer.

- Vinyls are always derived from digital files these days anyway! Except for pre-digital prints, studio rate digital is as "pure" as it gets.

P.S. Tube amps are not better than chip amps either, it's a complete myth. Every measurement a tube amp does well at is beatable with a cheaper chip amp design. People think we can do 10 gigabit Ethernet and 4g LTE radio bandwidth with chips, but not accurately control a speaker producing audible frequencies? Please.

Audiophile products have a weird way of capturing people's hearts despite having no merit. I think it's partly because people hear their favorite music through a device and misplace their feelings for the music onto the device, and partly because they are biased towards rationalizing purchases even when they've been conned by some pseudoscience or empty marketing.

Call us when they can back up this assertion in double blinded tests.

They can rather easily discern between the two in double blind tests. The vinyl recording has a noticeable amount of noise in it. Vinyl record players can't exceed the kinds of signal to noise ratios that human hearing can detect. The more ridiculous claims are the audiophiles who pretend to distinguish between ultra high sample rate audio and 44100Hz or 48000Hz sampled audio.

You are comparing the wrong things in the test. Play the vinyl record, recording it in cd quality, then compare that recording with the original vinyl. They won’t be able to tell the difference.

Yes, the analogy extends more than initially apparent :)