I, personally, don't think there is any legitimate argument that digital is better than analog. All digital is simply trying to reproduce the "live" quality of an ideal analog setup. There are only convenient advantages to digital sound because it is attached to devices that can manipulate it. It is also isolated until it gets to the speakers, meaning outside noise cannot interfere with it (like audience members coughing over a recording through an expensive microphone.) This makes it easier to hear clean sound through a digital source. Ideal, clean analog conditions are expensive and difficult to set up. Digital can be difficult too (look at us all talking about settings) but its not as expensive once the effort is made.
What I want to know is why I haven't found any hardware to actually connect to the 8 sound jacks in the back of my 7.1 surround computer? The digital/analog debate is pointless unless you can actually physically connect 6 or 8 speakers to get true surround analog sound. Anything else is just reproduced, synthetic surround. Because of this, digital sound has the advantage right now because we don't actually have a way of setting up individual analog connections in order to hear unmanipulated sound from consumer-level devices (outside of a professional environment with expensive equipment that DOES have individual connections.)
Yes, my computer-source is digital so I'm disregarding that and not calling it "digital sound." I still think we could have the advantage of digital storage if it's connected to hardware that doesn't manipulate it, and actually outputs each channel over individual, physical connections.
