Not sure I follow you as to what you think the limitation is? Everything has some limitations.
Also, every step of the way, some kind of A/D D/A conversion is involved.
No, there is an AD at the beginning and a DA before it gets to the speakers. Everything in between is all in the digital domain for a good reason. Robustness.
Of course, the quality of these converters vary thru the audio's signal path, since it travels through many different components.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
And of course, as the saying goes, the product will be only as good as the weakest link.
Lots of sayings out there in consumer marketplace
Some may be true, others are just urban legends. Not implying that this may be a legend
Therefore, the best way is to keep the signal in the analog realm all the way to your speakers, right?
Absolutely wrong. The best is to keep it in the digital domain as far as possible. Similar to the video signal that can be in the digital domain from the camera to your LCD TV
And, that would offer the least loss and most fidelity.
Of course, theres something that can already do that: vinyl.
Well, not really, unless you do a direct to disc recording. But, even then, your greatest weak link is the vinyl itself, well below any of the digital formats you mentioned or failed to mention, CD. Now here is your saying comes back to haunt.
Why can't there be an audio format that can simply plays back EVERYTHING what was recorded in the studio, instead of making a digital approximation of it?
Well, the digital formats do come the closes to the signal accuracy from the mic. So, your assumptions are in quicksand.
I'll use a theoretical analog rock recording as an example. A band in a studio records about 4 dozen tracks to a 16 track tape. All of these individual tracks will be eventually downmixed to 5.1 and stereo for consumer listening. Now, the stereo master tape is as good as the fidelity of the recording will ever get right? In other words, playing that tape back thru a mastering studio's tape machine/monitors is the maximum fidelity of that particular recording, right?
Well, it should be pretty good but you get losses in the analog domain.
SO my question to you is...why are we as consumers not allowed to hear it in that incarnation??????
You do. It seems that you may not accept that, hence another weak link in the audio chain.
That tape contains a finite amout of information. That finite amount of information will get screwed on its way of becoming that little 5 inch disc we all know and love.
Actually, it doesn't get screwed up. Many have compared DBT, the master tape feed and the CD. Next to impossible to differentiate.
Of course with DSD and MLP, and wuth advances in a/d d/a conversion, digital audio has come a long way. But there HAS to be a way to hear the entire story.
Actually, you do hear the entire story in the studio and mastering engineer hears. Try to accept this and you won't agonize over non issues.
Oh, going back to my original question, i think i read somwhere that laserdisc is ANALOG video stored on optical disc.
It was still in pits and hills on the disc but in a different encoding manner than CD.
