Starting over with vinyl

" My primary source to date has been CD.  How can I tell if vinyl is true analog?"

Age. I don't think any modern recordings are analog, high end or otherwise. Just about everything before the mid 80's is analog. Look at your CD's. If you see AAD printed somewhere, thats an analog recording and you should be able to find it on record. 

If you go vinyl, I would recommend a vintage Japanese table from the golden era. Late 1970’s. I got a refurbished one with burl magnolia veneer to match the speakers. It is manual (not much to go wrong), sounds great and looks good too. For as little as $500...

I just don’t like the modern plastic lightweight tables that became popular starting in the 80’s - they seem cheap to me and look cheap. I wanted heavy wood plinth or gargantuan lumps of steel! But I didn’t want to spend $10000 on playing old Japanese vinyl (as good as it is - the media and what is available is rarely pristine)

Vinyl is a slippery slope - I know , as I am currently careening down it at somewhat out of control speeds.  I have both digital and analog going now and still buy both formats.  I love my vinyl obsession, but it is much more expensive than digital as it is easy to get seduced into upgradeitis.

When I started buying vinyl, I was very wary of used and only bought new - mostly reissues.  With a lot of research online, I was able to identify the best quality recordings (thanks Steve Hoffman forums) and the best prices.  Nonetheless, I have bought almost 600 albums in the past year at a cost of over $8 grand.  Probably 10% of these were used. 

In the case of used, I found that there were a few shops in my area that were good places to find clean copies at fair prices, but these still cost $6-$12 depending on condition, vs $12-$18 for new on sale. ( I have spent as much as $40 for a single new album - but these are the "audiophile" editions that guys like Michael Fremer rave about). Occasionally I have come across great buys in the $2-$3 range, but it is very dependent on the music you are looking for.  FWIW - my entire collection is almost entirely comprised of albums originally recorded before 1980 (pre digital), or some recent albums that are largely or completely analogue recording / mastering (i.e Vanessa Fernandez - thanks Mr. Fremer).

 During that time I also bought CD's, including several SACD's, and typically spend $4-$6 each (SACD's $10-$15).  I am careful to read up on the mastering quality of these as many are not well done.  I have over 500 CD's, mostly purchased in the 80's and 90's, and many are unlistenable on my system - overly loud and shrill compared to my recent purchases.

Bottom line - my experience has led me to conclude that, to put together a good vinyl system ( TT, cartridge preamp) and a decent album collection is at least a $1,500-$2,000 investment, and can quickly grow from there. 

If I were on a tight budget, I would probably stick with a laptop as a source and a good DAC. There are plenty of online sources for lossless or hi res files cheap or free.

Again, thanks to all of you for the continued education.

raymonda - what are reliable sources for low cost cds (I assume used)

mesch - the Onix XCD-88 has a Burr-Brown 1732 24-bit/96kHz DAC, which I thought was decent. Which external DACs would you recommend for ripped CDs, downloads or streams?

sjtm - thanks for sharing your experience. What are reliable sources for low-cost high-quality CDs? Which online sources do you suggest for lossless or high res files? I appreciate what you said about unlistenable CDs as I have many in my small collection. As I type this I am listening to Santana’s Greatest Hits and the music is firmly wedged in the speakers

After digesting all that has been written here, I am inclined to remove my preamp and put in a passive to resolve gain problems, upgrade the MMGs to .7s or get Mye stands for the MMGs, remove the Denon and rely on the Onix as one primary source, with computer-based digital being the other.

I'm just curious, but did you get the whole Onix package with the amp and speakers? I've never had the chance to hear one of those systems. It looks like a really good deal.