Why is digital audio so complicated? Where did it all go wrong?

[f1eng]

This reminds me of a blind test report I read from a UK hifi magazines on amplifiers some 30 years ago. They conducted a blind test of around 8-10 amplifiers towards an audience and there was one amp that won by quite some margin. Interestingly, they showed the measured frequency response of the amplifiers as part of the report. Most amplifiers had relatively flat respons over the 10Hz-20kHz band except one, which basically was ok in the 1kHz-10kHz band and was swinging a lot outside this band (yes it was the one the test group preferred). It seems to me that people like a bit of imperfection and I guess this is what the LP gives you.

...or is it that the digital audio with DAC sampling gives a lot of high frequency noise that you can avoid with a LP playing into an old fashioned pre-amp/ power-amp combo??

Digital gives measurably less high frequency noise than LP. It is the case that LP is incapable of recording treble levels as high as CD (if they are on the recording) because of cutter limitations. Tape recorders are the same. One can get a flat frequency response at -20dB but nowhere near in the treble at 0dB so it is certainly the case that LP is incapable of being as loud in the top octave as CD, but frankly very few recordings have very high levels at very high frequency so this limit is rarely a problem on real music.