Where you hear MORE elasticity, MORE tonal density, MORE plankton, MORE
concentration to the point, MORE light-footedness and MORE palpability
... I hear MORE wickedly high noise floor, MORE compression, MORE distortion, MORE loss of low level detail, MORE loss of tonal balance, MORE fake "space" coupled with LESS instrument separation, and more unwanted/unnatural sibilance.
I will give you that the vinyl version has more of a "live" character to it, but I couldn't get past the artifacts to the point of it grating on my ears.
But that's me ... and you are you. When you grow up with that sound, and that becomes "natural" to you, then that is what you are going to gravitate to. I grew up spinning records, but spent too much time listening to what is coming off the microphone, so what sound natural to you, sounds unnatural to me.
The fake air of a NOS DAC running at CD sampling rates, the added distortion of a tube stage, and if you could couple it with George's suggestion for channel mixing to more center the image (gives a sense of immediacy), and you may capture much of what you love about vinyl. Some friends/acquaintance have played around with a bit of compression in the digital domain as well, but not aware of any players intentionally doing that.
BUT when listening to streamed vinyl I still feel the need for action - I
just want EVERY track from quobuz to sound like this. Please take just
some seconds and listen to this:
https://musicandvinyl.blogspot.com/2020/08/haruomi-hosono-from-aegean-sea.html?m=1
There
is just MORE elasticity, MORE tonal density, MORE plankton, MORE
concentration to the point, MORE light-footedness and MORE palpability
(compared to a "disdainful" quobuz stream). Do you know what I mean?
