Is purity a myth?

In yesterday's post Are vinyl records filtersI think we struck a nerve. In that post I pointed out that many of us find vinyl records to sound more musical than a digital recording - yet most of todays vinyl records started out as digital recordings - an obvious problem if you believe vinyl gets you closer to a purist's approach. I think it's worth examining our premise that all we have to do is keep stripping away all the layers of impurity in our systems to get to the musical truth. The vinyl/digital conundrum I raised would suggest perhaps the opposite may be true. PS Audio's design credo has always been to build products that get you closer to a you-are-there musical experience. To achieve those goals I have always sided with the "do as little harm as possible" philosophy to design - a philosophy shared by many of our fellow manufacturers in the high end. But clearly getting a digital recording ready for a vinyl pressing and the resultant product do not follow these guidelines - yet get us closer to where we want to go. Tomorrow I'll remind us of another example of the vinyl conundrum.