Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

My biggest shock in audio (many years ago, and before digital) was when a Linn dealer, unable to convince me that his Linn was better than my top of the line Denon, offered me a VPI suspension base at half price. I took it home and put it under my TT. My jaw dropped at the difference! To this day, I am leary of non-suspended tables, no matter the mass, unless steps are taken to avoid the deleterious effects of feedback. You will never suspect what is wrong until you hear the difference. See if you can isolate your TT by some means.

Let’s face it. Anyone who weighs into an analogue forum with such an inflammatory thread title is bound to expect some flak. ;)

Even if I had the money for e.g. 3-box DCS CD player, the cheapest of which retails at 40 or 50K(?) I wouldn’t buy one. Don’t know how this type of player stacks up against your Esoteric but it illustrates that analogue’s persuasiveness as a compelling musical medium is much more powerful than you suggest.

@moonglum well as the owner of a full Vivaldi stack (itself further tricked up with a boat load of extra gee gaws) I used to think it sounded pretty good -- until I upgraded my speakers (now M3) and pre-amp (now VTL 7.5III) -- I soon discovered that my prior speakers and pre had been adding a very pleasant coloration to CD playback that masked the shortcomings in red-book reproduction to a very agreeable degree (some added bass warmth and colorful splash around the treble largely from my ARC Ref40) -- with this stripped away the weaknesses in digital became clear and at the same token my LP reproduction took a great leap forward -- with the removal of that extra sheen and gloss all of the advantages of analog came out loud and clear (a wholeness of presentation, a seamlessness across all frequencies etc etc)

By the same token SACD now sounds that much better than red-book

What I'm getting at by this is that often times great sounding CD playback is about finding a set off complementary colorations that enhance the weaknesses in the medium -- with these in place CDs can sound really good, but once you get clued in to the extra spices and flavoring you are adding you soon hear them -- LPs on the other hand only keep getting better

It may be that the OPs Esoteric is designed to bring out the best in CD -- I will not weigh in on all the ways his LP playback system may be limited, suffice it to say that LP playback requires painstaking attention to detail in every aspect and any small error can ruin the whole thing

I truly believe the OP did not intend this thread to be inflammatory, true the title could have a little less provocative, but rather they are genuinely dismayed that their analog investment so far is giving a sub par performance to their ears.

Now their has already been plenty of great suggestions as to why this may be and in fact it could be a combination of a lot of reasons, not just one.

I could say that the cart may not be the best match for the arm. Certainly I feel the phono stage is lacking if nothing else in range of loading but likely suffering from old age as well.

What does this mean?

Unfortunately the OP is likely going to have to spend more money to get it right ,but they will know when they do.

First try playing a different album, maybe a pristine cut from an earlier decade, one known for an exemplary performance and see how that stacks up.

Pardon me if I’m wrong, but is this whole discussion based on a test with a sample size of only one (the Sarah Mclachlan album)? If so, then we’ve really gotten ahead of ourselves here. You can’t make a global judgment about digital vs. analog based on a single example, and more importantly you can’t assume that any release made on both CD and vinyl will sound equally good in both media. On the contrary, i have found that contemporary releases that are digitally produced sound better on CD or HD download than they do on vinyl. Radiohead In Rainbows and Beck Morning Phase are two examples I can think of off the top of my head. In both cases I found the vinyl version to be disappointing compared to the digital download. In fact I’ve steered away from new vinyl releases altogether because I think they’re often overpriced and under-beautiful. And I’m someone who thinks that pound for pound (dollar for dollar), analog is still far better than digital when it comes to simple realism in musical reproduction.

For your test to be informative I think you have to do two things:
- use a number of releases and try to get older vinyl that’s well made and recorded. you’ll have to build a sense of the differences after trying a range of CDs and LPs.
- make sure your vinyl set up is a fair match for a highly regarded CD player like the Esoteric X03SE. I see no problem with your VPI record player, but I agree with the comments here that your phono stage (really critical for vinyl!) could be better, and also your test won’t say much until you have the cartridge loading set correctly for the Denon.

Sorry if this sounds like a tirade - it’s only intended as constructive criticism. guess the point is, analog takes a lot more work to get it right. That's one of the many advantages of the digital medium!