(...Analog versus digital music: Is there a difference? First I want to talk about how analog and digital music works. While there are many complicated factors involved, in a nutshell here are the basics between the two:
Analog music represents the actual, continuous sound waves generated by the artists and their equipment (in most cases, but sometimes records are based upon digital recordings being converted back to analog format), recorded on vinyl as grooves via metal stampers or on cassettes as magnetic impulses.Every time a record or cassette is played a physical toll is taken upon it due to friction, wear and tear. Over time the sound quality will deteriorate.
Furthermore, the sound is generally better at the beginning of a vinyl recording as opposed to the end, because the smaller circumference can impact the ability of the record needle to follow the groove with 100% accuracy. And for those of us who grew up in the 1970's, the "crackle and pop" factor of records - not to mention the proverbial skipping or looping the same few seconds of music over and over - could be quite distracting.
Digital music is a COPY of analog music and it is not a continuous recording. Rather, the sounds are captured using samples (generally several thousand times per second). For instance, a CD is usually sampled at a rate of about 44.1 kHz, which translates to over 44,000 times a second, but sampling levels can run higher. The music is recorded in bits of information; a CD will usually feature 16-bit music, and as with sampling more bits can be used for better quality. The bit rate (the amount of data played per second) is also a factor; CDs often play at 128 Kbps, but this can increase as well. There is also a factor of compression; shrinking the music file to fit on the medium for which it is intended, which can impact playback. However, a type of compression called "lossless" is intended to combat this...")
I can't seem to construct a link but the source article is. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/analog-versus-digital-music-is-there-a-difference/
The big difference between analog and digital is that analog allows signals that digital often rejects. A high frequency and high resolution digital can be perfection, but the typical CD/MP3 type of digital is too low of a sampling and too low of a resolution, meaning the bits that describe an instance in time are too low to allow the analog harmonics to come through. So, most corporate boom-boom garbage is fine at digital rates, but finer music of great string playing won’t come through in digital unless sampled at a higher frequency and at a higher resolution.