General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: God turntables sound freakin' good [View all]jeff47
(26,549 posts)mp3 is lossy, and you can crank up just how much is "lost" if you want to get the file size down. That easily results in bad-sounding files. Since small file size is very helpful with streaming and torrents ("steal music off the web" , you'll get a lot of over-compressed digital music going that route. Also, mp3 is very good in a relatively narrow range of pitch, so you really don't want to use it for music that covers a very wide range in pitch (such as Classical music).
Obviously, compression isn't an issue with analog, so you can't have this particular problem with analog. Instead there's a host of other problems, mostly centered around longevity of the media. As with digital, those problems can be mitigated if you know what you're doing and are willing to put forth the effort to mitigate them.
Since any music I listen to currently has to compete with things like Dora the Explorer on the TV, crappy lossy mp3s are good enough for me, for now.