Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

Hello chadsort,

Your conclusion is dumbfounding to me, but I respect your report and your preference.

I agree with those who make the point that to experience the musical and emotional involvement of analog one should play an analog recording. Surfacing definitely is a digital recording. I see intellectually and hear sonically no point in playing a digital recording on an analog playback system, whether vinyl or tape.

Perhaps you simply subjectively prefer the drier/leaner/sharper sound of digital.

My live music listening and high-end audio systems auditioning leads me clearly, directly and unambiguously to the conclusion that state-of-the-art vinyl and tape playback of analog recordings recreates for me a much more musically-satisfying and emotionally-involving experience than does digital. With most digital playback of vocal recordings and piano recordings I find that I cannot even begin to relax and enjoy myself.

As stated brilliantly by Edward Rothstein in his amazing article about high-end audio in The New Republic:  "Analog seeks to approximate perfection, while digital seeks to perfect an approximation."

Not perfect but good enough.
Why don’t you buy a plane ticket and fly to Milan ? You could feel that ambiance the day after tomorrow .

By the way, I disagree with those who think that good digital is less expensive, I think exactly the opposite. You really need extremely expensive equipment to make digital tolerable. With analog - just a few thousand $$$$. If you play your $10k Marantz or Esoteric or Accuphase etc and heard nothing better - you have no idea how digital might sound. Still, it sounds artificial no matter what you do with it, and it always will. By definition. But people are stupid and stubborn and so they will keep trying.

A major problem that's holding back my digital system is that my vinyl significantly out-performs it. I'm trying to figure this out. It may be that it'll never be possible due to the dynamic superiority of vinyl? I went ahead and bought the Music on Vinyl release of Surfacing -- even though there's a Analog Productions release which is assuredly better.

My record playing system:
Triangle Art Concerto + upgraded platter / Jelco 750 / TA Zeus / TA speed controller / periphery ring and spindle weights.
Lite Audio all-tube phono stage + NOS 5751 with Herbie dampening rings...getting a Hashimoto SUT next week.

My digital system:
Custom PC no fans + linear PSU + battery isolated SSD + battery powered Paul Pang USB card / Win10 / Roon / HQPlayer / Fidelizer Pro.
Space Tech Lab DA-512DSD-1 / 274B + KT150.

Both systems (except the speed controller) are on a Chinese balanced isolation transformer I got in just this week.

Cabling is currently a mish-mash of pro cables, silver-plated copper customs from Amplifier Repair (on eBay) and an Audio Envy I picked up at a show. Power cables are mostly Audio Sensibility.

I got the Space Tech Lab a while ago to try and bridge the gap between my records and my digital because it was all-tubed with a big bottle 274B rectifier and no-holds-barred on the output tubes. The dynamics, especially with the all-tube phono stage, of my records are just in a different playing field compared to the digital and the new DAC didn't change that. When the Hashimoto comes in it'll probably take it up another notch.

I don't know what to do. If this keeps up I may abandon digital altogether. Do I need an Esoteric to reach the same level?