Sold it long ago. What audio difference are you hearing? Can we agree both are a waveform, and a faithfully sampled waveform will sound the same as its original

Sold it long ago. What audio difference are you hearing? Can we agree both are a waveform, and a faithfully sampled waveform will sound the same as its original? If so, the loss of faithfulness must be from somewhere in the signal path, like poor circuitry in the sampler or variation in mixer input stages. Is the same difference audible on a recording or only live?