Your "eureka" digital moment


I got into digital in 86 or 87. Very conveniant but I never gave up on vinyl. Digital was ok but something did not "make sense" musically. Until 2001 when I bought a second hand meridian 508.24. Then digital made sense. No, not a perfect player (dynamics were polite) but oh what a listenable player. That was when I finally got digital. 
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I think my eureka moment came when I discovered Spotify.  I already had a system I loved the sound of, which couldn't have been simpler - computer connected to integrated with built in dac running to speakers. So only 3 components including the computer, and only two cables, USB & speaker cables.   Realizing that for $10 per month I had instant access to 20 million songs through that simple system was my eureka - so much music and so few components required to bring it to life.  Simple + variety is a nice combination.
FYI folks I did clean the records! This was my real eureka moment  and a real experience. Can't I have it? Yes, a record cleaning machine was used. The noise is real and relative to CDs distracting. This is a simple reality of the medium relative to CDs. 
As much as the romance of vinyl appeals to me,the simplicity of my laptop with 40,000 songs wins the argument.
My "digital moment" came this past week after I replaced the two stock fuses in the ARC CD7se with the SR RED fuses. I thought the player was good before, but now ... WOW! Digital in my house has now gone from "convenience" to running serious competition with my vinyl rig. 

On the "snap, crackle and pop" ... I have thousands of LPs, both mono and stereo. Many are 50 years old and older and contain music that's not available on CD. I'll take a little tape hiss and a little noise in order to enjoy the music that's hidden in those grooves. And by the way, many of my records are just about silent ... even the mono recordings.
As soon as I switched from CD player to rip and stream via a good quality DAC only, about 7 years ago or so.