Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

Dear @chadsort: Sorry my fault ( thank's @uberwaltz . ).

I'm a music lover and like today digital and analog alternatives. Your digital hardware is a good one but nothing exceptional for today digital latest technology and even that " crushed " analog and you are rigth.

Latest today digital technology outperforms the best today analog one, no matter what and no matters hwta analog lovers ( like me ). could think: no one analog lover has true facts that can prove the analog superior quality performance other that: " I like it " and this is not an objective fact.

I own thousands of LP's and if I was you the best way to go is to put on sale the analog rig and LP's and invest the more you can in digital.

Analog needs not only money, a lot of learning patience, from whom you learn and years ( noth months ) to fine tunning the analog rig.
Even several of the gentlemans that already posted in your thread in favor of analog that already gave you their advises are still learning in the same way I do every single day.

If you can justified all the very hard efforts you must do to stay nearer to digital alternative that's up to you but with 50 LP's  ? ? ? ? , maybe with 500 LP's you can meke the analog home work but at the end: best today analog can't outperforms today best digital alternative to listen MUSIC.

No, that no one try to convince you that in a few more weeks/months you really learned about analog because the one that could tells that is a lier.

The analog forums ar full of audiophiles that own not hundreds of LP's but thousands of LP's and that are " accustom " for many many years to the analog distortions ( including me. ), exist a clear justification for the analog rig and the other is that even today exist some recordings that we can't get in digital format.
When we analog lovers are talking about always " win " our subjective opinion over facts. It's " crazy " but it's the way things are. MUSIC is not a subjective issue but objective one that intrinsically comes with some subjective characteristics, that's all.


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

But how did you compare? Is it the same mastered track, volume matched? Otherwise there is no valid comparison that I can think of. All the talk of air is always cool and all, but its just gibberish.

Here’s my (very simplified) take. My apologies if most of what I say has been covered. There are two major factors here contributing to what the OP has found.

1) Zu 103 is not a bad cartridge, but is a poor match with the VPI arm. Assuming proper setup in the rest of the analog front end and system as a whole, a more sympathetic, medium compliance cartridge with a more sophisticated stylus profile will sound MUCH better than the Zu on that arm.

2) To evaluate what good analog is capable of you need good analog recordings: either vintage records or quality all analog reissues of older recordings typically made prior to the early 80’s before digital recording became popular.

If the OP has only 50 records and listens primarily to newer music, he may be best focusing on digital as Raul just said above. If I only had 50 records, instead of the 2000 I have, 99% of which were recorded analog and are in mint condition, I probably wouldn’t start over with analog.

Raul.

A very honest and succinct post sir!

Sometimes the hard words have to be said.

And yes we are all learning in this game of ours, I hope I learn something every day.

Good luck to the OP but maybe digital is the correct path for them after all.