Worth pursuing analog sound from digital?

mijostyn

re: personal involvement in results is a part of LP preference I agree.

In the beginning, CD players were prohibitively expensive, acquired by people likely to already have excellent TT and acquired cartridge alignment skills.

Those skills, bit by bit (hah, that's a digital process)) steadily improved their existing LP sound. (and R2R as Tape was also a rich mans game).

CD took away all personal involvement in the results, 'threw away' the years of acquired skills. 

Also, early CD's were conversions of old analog masters. Incredibly, (I read somewhere back then) some LP masters, having 1st stage phono eq, were converted without 2nd stage Phono EQ. The complaint of harshness was true because those digital copies had exaggerated highs and cut bass. 

A switching DAC, alternating left/right processing was less desirable than dual Burr-Brown dacs. more bits, 1 bit, less jitter, OMG, green stripes on the outer edge of CD's, the string of what could be 'improved' was longer than the list of what is wrong with the entire LP chain.

Except for the green stripes, and placing barbell weights on top of your CD player, personal involvement was/is still missing.

Of course, every response here is based on the personal equipment of the poster.
How can there be any accurate judgement when everybody’s listening on different components?
Fruitless endeavor.

Longtime vinyl lover here--someone who successfully transitioned to digital-only in the desktop audio setting (including quality headphones--very revealing of digital). A few observations:

1 - The trad way to get better sounding digital is to throw extreme money at delta-sigma conversion chips. Things like intricately designed input sections; big power supplies; heavyweight output sections; and sometimes, exotic bit-shaping circuitry in the digital section (ie, not defaulting to stock filter options of the chip itself. I haven't heard any of these dreadnaughts, which can cost upwards of $20K-$30K, but trust the comments I read that these DACs are a glimpse of sonic heaven.

2 - But back in the real world, I found one needn't spend so much or work nearly so hard to get better digital sound. I'll echo what teo_audio said about R2R & ladder DACs. Yes, it's an old technology and requires precise resistor matching (if a true ladder is used); or absent that, a very well conceived & programmed FPGA section. But these types of DACs sound far less "digital" than anything I've yet heard.

3 - In my experience, the NOS (non-oversampling) variant of R2R & ladder DACs is best for me. The sound is simply more organic, relaxing, suggestive of recording space, and representative of actual, 3-dimentional instruments (which produce 3D notes). Not all NOS DACs are amazing--these designs have to be very carefully planned & executed w/quality parts. But that's a given in any audio sphere.

My 1st non-D/S DAC was the humble NOS 19 by the well-known Chinese audio designer/mfr, Audio GD. It completely transformed my relationship w/digital. For the first time, I could relax and hear music coming from this DAC. I got interested in Audio GD and decided to buy their biggest selling DAC ever, the resistor ladder DAC-19. It, too, is very fine-sounding digital. 

I since sold the NOS 19 & replaced it with an NOS DAC I got interested in, the MHDT Labs Orchid. It, too, offers very humane, musical sound. I just swapped out the stock tube from the buffer circuit for a highly-recommended NOS variant. Even w/o the tube being fully burned in, it already sounds rather amazing. 

(forgot to say) Ladder DACs are hardly a "new thing." Theta Digital & a couple others did tremendous development/refinement of early R2R circuits in the '90s, and some of those DACs are still around, sounding amazing. But the mass market never adopted this form of digital, preferring delta-sigma instead (by a wide margin). And now R2R & ladder DACs are having a distinct renaissance, luckily for me.

Wrm57 said it correctly

I’ve listened to two excellent & expensive vinyl systems 
They are better....

The question for me is;  will mid level vinyl sound better ?

Im awaiting a final listen to a Chord Huei Phono stage & then pull the trigger.

My mid level Analog will be : 

Project Classic, Hana SL & “ probably “ a Musical Surroundings Phenomenona 2 Phono ( or Chord?)

Will it be better than Chord Quetest running Tidal & DSD upsample?

we will see

jeff